One Word, and That Was Dead
by ellequoi
Summary: DONE! Final chapter is pie, lies, sulphur and cameras. Dean contracts a demonic virus and comes to PPTH on Sam's coaxing, a case for which... Cuddy lets House off clinic hours? Divine intervention must be involved. Post SPN5.14/HMD6.02.
1. Chapter 1

_**One Word, and That Was "Dead"**_

**Chapter One**

Dr. Gregory House peered over the balcony overlooking the entrance to the hospital, looking for one of his favourite people to torment. She wasn't in her office - in fact, this week's assistant said she hadn't come in yet.

And if he was at work before Cuddy... well, he was coming to work too early, that was for sure. And he was going to give her hell about it!

The suit pacing the entrance didn't catch his eye at first (her top proved unaccessible to look down) until someone said, "Hi, Dr. Cuddy!"

Cuddy with a top that couldn't be looked down? It must be the end of the world. House stuck his cane between the open elevator doors and hitched a ride down.

When he came face to face with Cuddy, he had a sudden flashback to their college days, the time he'd made her late for a job interview. She had that same pacing he should've recognised, same prim secretary outfit, none of the tranny makeup he teased her about, and a very nervous look on her face.

Cuddy was trying very hard right now. He just didn't know for what. But he was definitely going to find out.

He didn't have to wait very long.

"House! Good," she said when she caught sight of him. "I need to talk to you. My office, now."

"Yes, Mistress."

He followed her to her lair, ogling her all the way. "You know, I see what you're trying to do with that new look."

"Didn't notice I had one," said Cuddy.

"You're trying to make that ass look just a leetle less planetary. I don't think it's working, but more observation's probably in order."

"I have a case for you."

"But I've gone almost a month without one! Oh please, a few days more and I make a personal record."

"I'm told this case is very unusual. Who knows, you might even enjoy yourself."

"Oh really? Prove it."

Cuddy told her assistant not to bother them and shut her doors firmly.

House raised his eyebrows. "You know, if you wanted me, all you had to do was say so. I don't see a case file, after all."

"That's because the patient hasn't been admitted yet. Nor-" Cuddy raised her finger admonishingly- "nor will he be."

"You want me to treat a patient we're not admitting? I'm all for e-commerce, but-"

Cuddy's gaze drifted to the side as she rattled off the details from memory. "His name is Dean. He will be arriving shortly and your team will intercept him and bring him in. You will list him as a John Doe during his stay here, and he will not be charged for any medical expenses. He has an unknown virus that may be contagious, so your team has to take precautions."

"You know the patient's background is the key to solving these cases! My hands are tied here if this is all you're going to give me."

Cuddy looked him in the eye. "If you'll _be good_ during this case and not push too hard for information that no one can give you, I'll let you off clinic hours for this month."

That was altogether too tempting to pass up - although of course he'd be investigating this patient anyway. "Done!"

Actually, that _was_ altogether too tempting. House was starting to feel suspicious.

"Wait a second, who is this guy again? An old flame of yours? Secret love child? Mafia kingpin?"

"I don't know any more than you do, House. I've just been given instructions."

"By who?" he persisted, but she wouldn't answer him.

As he turned to leave, she said, "This may be one of the ones that gets away, House; I don't know if you'll be able to solve this case. It's all right if you don't. The odds are stacked pretty high against you."

"Oh ye of little faith," he scoffed and, against his will, began to feel very interested indeed.

Something in Cuddy had changed, he realised. It wasn't just the clothes, or the fact that under the sunlight streaming through her windows, Cuddy looked like she was glowing. There was calmness and caring in her demeanour that hadn't been there before.

House didn't like change much. He felt off-balance and uncertain with these new developments, like someone had knocked his cane out from under him. His team, on the receiving end of his moods, was going to have a tough week of it.

But he owed it to Cuddy to see it through such positive changes without mocking them... when it led to a month off clinic duty, anyway.

"Cuddy?"

"Yes, House," she said without looking up from her work.

"You look nice today."

"Thanks."

"For your age, of course. I hear Woo is magic with the Botox."

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "Get to work."

House made his way to his office as fast as he could, snubbing Wilson's cheerful greeting along the way. This case was mysterious enough that he was kind of looking forward to seeing this patient.

"Listen up, folks," he said to his fellows. "I want each of you to take an entrance. We have a patient that needs admitting. Or - not admitting. Supposed to stay totally anonymous."

"Wait a minute," said Foreman. "We have a case that we haven't looked at first? That no one's looked at?"

"Cuddy let me off clinic hours for this one."

"Is it that intense a case?" Chase asked.

"Or just a trustee or someone?" Foreman cut in.

House shrugged. "I don't know... anything about our patient, really. His name is Dean but we're admitting him as a John Doe, and none of the bills are supposed to go through."

"House, this is ridiculous," said Cameron. She looked to her coworkers for backup, but they seemed resigned. Inasmuch as rolling eyes could be considered resignation, anyway. "What the hell are we supposed to do with the paperwork?"

"I don't know, figure something out. My orders are coming from Big Mama. Now-" he banged his cane on the table- "run Lola run!"

As his doctors scrambled, House strolled over to his office. Daytime television was a soap opera jackpot.

Foreman came in soon after.

"Aren't you supposed to be waiting for our patient? Or is he already here?"

"The nurses said they'd let me know," said Foreman, already absorbed in a crossword.

House was impressed. He filed away the information that Foreman had the nurses on his side.

"Fine," House said, "but the next colonoscopy goes to you."

Foreman winced a little.

____________

"This is stupid," Dean rasped, as they headed towards the entrance in what amounted to a crawl. "We didn't have to go out of our way, any hospital would do."

"Our travel was instantaneous," said Castiel.

"Now you shot off your angel juice, though. What if we need you in a fight?"

"Look, Dean, we know a demon was the source," Sam said. "If it's like the Croatoan virus, it's just going to confuse a regular doctor. I e-mailed one of my friends in med school about this, and-"

"You talk to your friends about me?"

Sam pursed his lips. "Sometimes, I need someone to vent to." When his brother didn't answer him, Sam's stomach lurched. Any other time, Dean would've risen to the bait and they'd be squabbling over the issue right now. "She says Dr. House is like a pitbull with weird cases, just doesn't let go. If there's anything we can find out from your case, he'll be the one to find it."

A blond doctor approached them as they entered. "Are you Dean?"

Dean, through sheer force of will, snapped upright and into hunter mode. "Who wants to know?" Sam could see him reaching to check on his weapons and slapped at his hands, not wanting to alienate anyone trying to help them. Once Dean was admitted, they could set up the proper traps and precautions.

The doctor nodded, giving Dean a quick once-over. "Let's just get you in a chair, and we'll go up to the room we prepared for you."

Dean's jaw dropped and he tried to catch the glances of the two on either side of him for backup. Sam ignored him, but Castiel stepped forward.

"I called ahead," he said.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

In separate rooms, Chase and Cameron were each asking a Winchester brother, "When did the symptoms begin?"

"About four days ago," Dean was saying to Chase, as Sam said to Cameron, "Uh, two days ago? He woke up covered in bruises."

"Where have you travelled in the past five years?"

"Every state," said Dean. "I'm like a sailor in that 'every port' kinda way."

"How much time do you have?" said Sam. "I could maybe give you a list tomorrow, if it's important."

"Have you every travelled outside the country?"

"Mexico. Canada... Cuba but wasn't there very long," Dean said. Sam had made him promise to tell the truth if he could.

Chase blinked. "Aren't you American? You're not supposed to go to Cuba."

"If I told you about it, I'd just have to kill you." Dean flashed one of his most charming smiles at Chase. The truth really could set you free sometimes. With the apocalypse to deal with, the fugitive thing was the least of their worries. Lying was exhausting, and he could finally distance himself from it a little and relax. The sad thing was that he was still kind of lying: the monsters bit was just too much to share.

Chase swallowed. Why did _he_ always get stuck with the violent ones? In this case, the alternative had been letting Allison be alone with this guy, who had smiled at her a bit too much. It was a tossup.

Cameron gently repeated to Sam, "Have you every travelled outside the country?"

He blinked, startled, and brought his eyes back to resting on her. "Yeah... twice. Just to Mexico, though. Dean wasn't even with me one of those times." Cameron thought she could see the beginning of tears in his eyes.

"Hey," said Cameron, "I'd love to say that we could wait and do this later, but we want to do everything we can for your brother. The more you can tell us, the more we can do."

Sam gulped.

"Have you suffered any major wounds or accidents?" Chase asked Dean.

Dean took a while to answer. "Shot, stabbed, electrocuted - damn well gave me a heart attack." He grinned. "I'm kinda like 50 Cent."

"Oh come on, you're having me on," Chase burst out, unable to keep up his professional demeanour any longer. "What do you _do_?"

"Bounty hunter. Why? Got a job for me? See-" Dean ripped and yanked down the neck of his hospital gown to show the scars on his shoulder. Chase noted the tattoo and scribbled on the chart.

"You're serious."

"Again - stab wound right here."

Chase looked a little closer, then noticed something else. "Wait a minute." He pulled the left side of the gown a little lower. "How did you get this?" It was the weirdest burn he'd ever seen, shaped like a handprint curving around Dean's tricep. It boggled the mind trying to understand the logistics of it.

"Honestly, I have no idea." Dean paused before adding, "It's probably from the volunteer firefighting." Okay, maybe he didn't mind lying when it involved sounding freakin' awesome.

* * *

House swung his cane at their awesome, newly-reinstated, see-through diagnosis board. He'd made Foreman steal it back from the OB/GYN lounge while they were waiting. He missed being able to spy on the denizens of the parking lot while writing up symptoms, and he was in good with Cuddy because of this new case anyway.

"What else did our mystery man tell you?" he asked his staff. There was a long list of mundane, if painful, symptoms on the board for patient "John D'oh".

"Our patient came in with a brother and a friend, and none of them have a fixed address," said Chase.

"So Foreman can't feed his urge to break and enter... and knowing our luck, it'll be environmental," said House. "Run some cultures - seems more bacterial than viral to me, no matter what The Cuds says - and check for immunodeficiency, AIDS especially - how old is this guy?"

"Thirty," Foreman read off the chart.

"Nice try, Man Friday, like you did any of the work."

"Is today rag-on-Foreman day or something?" Cameron asked.

"Hey," said House. "Foreman kicked back with a cuppa joe while you guys were busting your asses out there."

Cameron glared at Foreman, who shrugged defensively. "Carry on."

"Any changes in personality?" House continued. "Anyone interview the brother?"

"Other than increased irritability, no," said Cameron. "But he didn't notice his brother was sick until two days after the symptoms started."

"Patient's on the rag, case solved. Cameron and Chase can go spend a Very Special Moment with him. Everyone not bleeding, get to the lab and run the tests. Just kidding, didn't want to lose that line. Now: let's go through the symptoms. How bad is the bruising?"

"He's basically one giant bruise," said Chase. "I transfused one unit already. There's probably internal bleeding that we'll have to check for."

"The aching bones - X-ray and biopsy."

"Are we going to diagnose him anytime soon, or just run tests?" Foreman asked.

House pointed at him. "Don't think I don't know your motivations behind this one, young grasshopper. The patient apparently has a virus - but I'm not convinced. And most of his symptoms point to a few common illnesses that look more bacterial than viral. I want to see what the common factor is before trying to narrow it down to just one disease."

"And what if it's not?" asked Chase.

"Then we treat for five," said House. "Nothing we haven't done before."

Chase scowled. "This case is strange. The patient was pulling my leg the whole time I was in there, his life is as easy to investigate as a tadpole's, and we aren't even going to be able to MRI him."

Someone knocked. They all looked up to see a tall, lanky frame filling the doorway.

"Oh, look, it's the BFG." House wondered how much mileage he could get out of that... and whether any of them had even heard of the Big Friendly Giant. Maybe Chase. It was kind of a British thing.

"House!" Cameron chided. "We were just discussing your brother's case, Sam." She smiled at him.

He nodded. "Do you have any ideas? Or treatments? Anything?"

"We might have if Bambi wasn't still in here," House said, then looked around. "Oh! I guess I was the only one talking about the elephant in the room." Were elephants ever named Bambi? If not, he was mixing metaphors really badly. Oh well.

Foreman stood up. "Your brother's in good hands, though it may not-" he glared at House-"look like it. We're going to run some tests, see what we can do real soon."

"That's great," said Sam. "Is he always like this?"

"Yes, always" the team said in an out-of-sync chorus, drowning out House's, "If you mean virile, brilliant and cuttingly incisive - pun intended! - then yes!"

"Okay then." He turned to Chase. "Look, my brother told me a little about his session with you, and I feel bad that he kept jerking your chain like that - I know you guys are just trying to help - so I got a list of his medical records going back to when he was a kid."

House switched into professional mode. "So some other hospital gets to have his full medical records while we get stuck with a page of chickenscratch?" Well, professional for him, anyway.

"We... ah... when we were young we went through a lot of different insurance companies-"

"And, let me guess, a lot of different names." He knew the type. Sam dropped his gaze and scuffed his toe along the carpet, as if it was best not to say any more.

"Anyway, so that's Dean's, and if you need any other records for our family you can ask, we might have those too," he said in a rush, making a hasty exit.

"Oh my God," said Cameron, frowning. "There are a lot of injuries on this list. A _lot_. They don't start til his teens or so, but I'm thinking maybe abuse."

"That he just admits to on paper? Who do you think wrote this all down?" Chase asked, peering at it over Cameron's shoulder. Foreman drew next to them to see as well.

"If he gets up to this much on a regular basis, I think we can discount the bruising as a symptom," said Foreman.

There was a flurry of paper as House snatched the list to look at it himself. Really, where were the days of bosses getting everything first? He compared it to the forms in the patient's charts.

"Looks like it was written by the patient, unless messenger boy is really good at faking big bro's handwriting. Which no one is. You fake a signature, you go for the big guns - Mom or Dad." He scanned through the information further. "Not much mention of either here except for cause of death, immolation and complications from a car accident. Oho! Maternal grandparents were murdered. All fairly young. Wow, this family is totally cursed." One... two...

"_House!"_ said Cameron.

He smirked. Like clockwork.

"As long as the patient doesn't decide that's why he's dying and refuse treatment," said Foreman. "That happens so much more often than I expect."

"He didn't give any reason for his injuries in the file," Chase said. "Maybe we should get a bigger family history."

House nodded. "Since Cameron has touchy feel-good crap ready every time she sees him, she can go ask... and distract him while I go talk to the patient." Cameron got up. "Ubububub!" He cut her off. "Not yet. I want to see if there's any more to find out about the patient."

"I don't think you'll find much. As you pointed out with the medical records, we don't even know his last name, maybe not even his first."

* * *

"Dean Winchester."

His patient tensed, tucking an arm behind him. "Where'd you hear that?"

"Oh, calm down. You and Paul Bunyan out there aren't that hard to identify, you know."

Dean - or Lara Croft, as House had nicknamed him after reading his rap sheet - watched him warily. "What are you going to do then?"

"First, I'm going to treat you. Then, I'm going to annoy my boss. After that, a reuben. Finally..."

House was drawing it out on purpose. Okay, he often hated his patients. But this one? Between the criminal record vile enough to unnerve even him a little, the military air that reminded him of his dad, the feeling that Cuddy might somehow be involved with this scumbag, the lies more outrageous than any they'd ever gotten, the complete _mystery_ all of it entailed, and then... for a moment, House could do nothing but stare, names of untraceable poisons and laxatives running through his head.

The patient had STOLEN HIS CANE.

No one had _ever_ abused his cane, and by extension, him, so much in so short a time. Even Wilson had built up slowly. Dean had just wrenched it away in one fell and unbalancing swoop and was now holding it like a spear at him. It was going to take a lot to make up for this insult.

House said, "Oh, you are _so _dead." There were some great things you could unleash upon a patient with a mysterious illness and carte blanche for funding. Catheter. Cytoscopy.

"Kinda thought that was a given."

House's mind raced, back on the case; it was either that or shoot the patient with a gram of adrenaline. "It is, isn't it? Wouldn't be the first time. Tell me: how do you keep on coming back? Unless you're secretly a cockroach, I could really use a tip on the resurrection thing." Dialysis. Chemo? Nah, Wilson would bitch.

"Bad timing and an evil twin?"

"You think you're going to die," House surmised, pouncing on Dean's earlier words. "You don't expect anything from me at all, do you? You've been lying through your teeth your whole stay and stole my cane. You don't _want _me to cure you." Lumbar puncture. Something involving needles in eye.

Dean raised a finger. House tried to determine if his grip was loose enough to steal back the cane yet. "It wasn't my idea to come here, all right?"

"Whose was it?" He'd been shot, right? An MRI might get those bullets out.

"Sam, my little brother."

"Little like the Hulk maybe," House muttered. He considered assigning the patient bone marrow biopsies and exploratory surgeries before turning to another train of thought. "If you are a bounty hunter like you say, then what have you been doing with all your money? Saving up in case of illness to hand it over to Cuddy?" Breast implants. Patient looked like a girl already.

The patient leaned forward with interest. "What's Cuddy?"

House snickered. 'What' indeed. He was shocked, though, that their Very Important Patient was unaware of her. Relieved, too. "Cuddy is the fire-breathing dragon who guarded the hospital entrance fiercely until piggybacking you right through."

"So he's your boss."

"She, although that's a new development." There, that should keep his patient away from Cuddy. She'd probably come by to snoop. "Where's all your money going? Your clothes look and smell like they came off a homeless corpse."

"Ammo, weapons, travel costs... hey, cut the crap. You calling the cops or not?'

Colonoscopy: two birds with one stone. Leeches... no, maggots.

"I told you, treatment first. Only the best for our serial killers." The patient looked bow-legged; maybe he could recommend some resetting of bone.

"And then?"

"I can't exactly tell you, can I? You'd escape as soon as you got the chance."

"Look, buddy, you want your cane back or not?"

If he needed a transplant, House would make sure the organs came from a pig, and the surgery had no anesthetic. Plus he hated being called 'buddy'.

"I'll call once I've solved your case."

Dean swallowed and tossed the cane back to House. "Then you're right, I'll be gone. And Cuddy may not be very happy about that."

House frowned. Something was definitely very wrong with this. Not just Cuddy's instructions so far, but the fact that she wouldn't want him doing the right thing. Since when was that Cuddy?

"What do you have on her?" Dean could get a needle to the heart every time he needed an injection. Or, more fittingly, to the dick. Cameron could do those.

"Dude, I still don't know who she is. What's your deal with her?"

House's lips tightened. He was about to start threatening the patient when the brother came in. Some delaying tactics Cameron had. She was definitely on dick duty now.

"You," he said, whacking Sam with his cane.

"Ow!" He turned big, sad eyes and a comically woeful pout on his brother. "He _hit_ me."

The patient withstood that face manfully. "Just doin' what we were all thinkin', Sammy."

"Actually," said House, "if you want to pass that whack on to Lara Croft there, I provide full medical permission. Also, I need to talk to you."

As House exited, he heard, "You stole a cane from a cripple?"

"Who else do you steal canes from? C'mon!"

Some scuffling and furious muttering came from the room before the brother came to join him.

House greeted him with, "Your brother's a criminal."

Sam's eyes darted left or right to see if anyone was listening. He sighed. "I could say it's not what it looks like, and it's true, but you're not going to believe me anyway."

"Try me."

"We... investigate murders, disappearances, stuff like that. Sometimes there are patterns to them, and when we follow them we end up at the wrong place at the wrong time." Sam was practically forcing the words out, looking extremely uncomfortable.

"I bet you were just holding it for a friend, too."

"I've told you the truth, as much as I can. What do you want from me? I looked you up; I know this won't stop you from treating my brother."

House moved closer, trying to look more intimidating. Against someone this size, it probably didn't work. "How did you get our dean of medicine to help a couple of thugs like you? She may like it rough, but this is beyond her kind of service."

Sam looked a little put out by his description of Cuddy. Good. The more to keep these fugitives away from her, the better.

"We meet a lot of people in our line of work. Someone we knew who she would trust and believe her paid a visit."

"Who. Did. You. Send?" He knew how easy Cuddy's was to break into. Anyone could've been there.

There was an uneasy silence. "That's probably something you should ask her."

He had a feeling already that that conversation would be a losing battle.

Cuddy was already there when he got to his office after a side trip to menace his team out of lunch and into administering a series of painful tests.

"House. I saw everything you scheduled for the patient," said Cuddy. She grasped his hands. "Thank you so much for all you've been doing so far."

"Did the nurses put an APB out on me again?"

"Oh, I told your team to report back to me on the progress of the patient. I feel kind of responsible for him, you know?"

Of course Cuddy would use his team as the eyes and ears on the case.

"About that," said House slowly, "have you seen him? Do you know who he is?"

"Not yet, no." Cuddy's forehead creased. "Why? Who is he?"

House wordlessly passed her the rap sheet he'd printed out.

Cuddy raised her eyebrows, but otherwise he could see no reaction from her. "What are you going to do when the case is over?" she said in a too-casual tone.

"What do you think?"

She shook her head. "Just - let me know before any SWAT team comes crashing through the windows?"

"So you can warn them. Since when did you decide to play Bonnie to such a creepy Clyde?"

"If they said they're not harming anyone, then I believe them. I know I can't ask the same of you, especially considering what you know right now, but for God's sake, House, you gave a gun back to the crazy holding up my hospital. If you could be a part of that then, be a part of this now."

"Cuddy, I know you have an insane love of feeling loved - what I think of as your mommy syndrome -"

"Not today, House."

"Why are you doing this? Is someone threatening you, holding something over your head?"

"No! I made this choice for myself."

"Because while I'd usually be happy to aid and abet that kind of situation.."

"He's just another patient that I'm counting on you to treat."

"Yeah, and watching like a hawk. The brother told me that someone you would trust came and talked to you. Who was it?"

"House." Cuddy touched his arm. "While I appreciate your concern-" House snorted- "this is just something you're going to have to trust me on. Like I trusted the... person... who came to me, whom I am not going to tell you about, no matter how much you pester me."

"I'll withhold treatment from the patient," House threatened.

Cuddy shook her head, smiling. "No you won't."

He sighed. He'd done almost he could to try and convince Cuddy to tell him the truth, but it wasn't working. There was only one option left to him, and it was really going to kill to have to use it.

"I don't want you to get hurt," he said.

Her face softened. "I'll be fine. We all will. Just - believe me on this one, okay?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"What do we do now?"

"Well, he knows the FBI business, but not the hunting stuff, so the second I'm any better, he'll call the cops."

"Where do you need to go next?" Castiel interjected calmly.

"Dammit, Cas, I don't wanna get stuck eating _vegetables _for a week again! It weakens a man! Hence, Sam."

"Dean," Sam began hesitantly, "I asked Bobby to do some research for us. I think we may have some leads on the demons who infected you."

"No. I don't want you going near them."

Sam stuck his jaw out in that way that meant he was going to be stubborn. "Meaning that you don't trust me."

"Meaning that I don't want you getting sick, too! Just because you didn't get hit by the Croatoan virus, you think you're safe from this one? We can't be _sure_, Sam."

"Maybe," said Sam, moving away to be out of reach from his brother's backhand, "it's the demon blood that provides immunity."

Dean raised a finger to cut him off. "I see where you're going with this, and I don't like it one bit. I'm not going anywhere _near_freaking demon blood, okay?"

"What do you think, Castiel?"

"Hey! Don't bring Cas into this!"

Sam rolled his eyes at him. "Dean, I think he'd probably know a little more than us about it, okay?"

"Michael may not accept you if there is demon blood in you... or he might scourge you of it."

"See? Two birds with one stone, Dean! You could get Michael off your back!"

"If we're dealing with demon blood again, you'd probably end up with Lucifer anyway," Dean shot back. "And scourging sounds painful."

Cas nodded. "From what I've seen, very."

"And this is what you want for me, Sam?"

Sam set his jaw. Dammit, it was Uncompromising Face: Dean would not like what would come next. "I'm trying to save your life here - something that, might I add, you're not trying very hard to do! Bounty hunter? Cuba? Come on, Dean!"

Well, that was unfair. "They're both kind of true!" Dean defended himself.

"Whatever. This is a chance to get better, and to get the angels off your back, and you're not taking it! What am I supposed to think, Dean?"

He felt so impotent stuck in the bed with arms flailing weakly, not being able to get up and have it out with Sam. Knock some sense into that big damn head of his. "Look, I'm not taking anything from one of those sons of bitches who killed Mom, all right?"

"Oh, so now you're saying I've betrayed Mom? Is that what you've been thinking all this time, Dean?"

"No, Sam, what I'm thinking is that you betrayed _me!_ When I came back, you lied to me all the time, went behind my back with Ruby, trusted her over me, _strangled_me! You could've been smoking pot with Ruby the whole time and I still would've been pissed, all right?"

He'd let Sam foster the pretence that what the siren had made them say hadn't been real, but he couldn't hold it back any longer. Not when he was on the verge of dying and Sam was driven to another freaking demon vendetta.

The worse part of the fight that followed was that he couldn't even remember what he said, lost in a blur of righteous anger, grasping at straws to try to get his brother to stay and not start this all over again. He could remember what Sam said though, oh boy could he, and probably always would. Again Dean was cast in that role of weak tyrant - was that an oxymoron? - and being stuck in freaking bed like this, he hadn't exactly been able to argue the former. He was controlling yet ineffective, bullheaded but unmotivated... he'd heard it all before. Hadn't wanted to hear it again.

"You know what?" he shouted. "You really want to chase after demons instead of staying here with me when this was your idea, go ahead!" Oh no, _why_did he do that? Ultimatums were always a bad idea with Sam, he knew that. His organs lurched hellward.

Sam glared at him, breathing heavily. "If you think that's all I'm doing this for, then you're right. I've worked my ass off for years trying to keep you alive, and if you think it's just about demons, then I don't want to stay here." He stormed out.

"Neither do I!" he shouted, as a parting shot, but his brother was gone.

Dean slumped back against his pillows, exhausted. He was reeling from what had just happened, his heart pounding hard, and the aching from his bones and bruises was starting to flare up something fierce.

"And that's what you call a John Winchester move," he said, defeated. "Sam's going to do it now, I know it."

"Why did you not _ask _him to stay with you?"

Castiel's presence had totally slipped his mind for the most part while he'd been arguing, but now that he realised his friend was there, he felt calmer, ready to unburden himself to that impassive, unjudging presence. Cas knew what was going on, probably better than he did; no point in trying to hide anything from him.

"I should've. It's just - he mentions demons, demon blood and I get angry, worried. It's not good for him. And if I ask him to stay, he's going to know how bad it is, and then he'll start acting stupid and the home stretch'll suck. Already kinda sucks, though." Dean shook the hand the IVs were placed in. "All these freaking bags and I didn't even get any morphine."

"Are you in pain, Dean?"

Dean shifted uncomfortably. He hated answering that question, shouldn't have brought up the issue. "Well... a little, I guess," he admitted. "Kinda hurts."

"You don't have to pretend."

He let go. What point was there in lying? Cas could just read his mind anyway. "On the 10-Minutes-in-Hell scale, it's a 2. So yeah, it sucks, but I've had worse."

"Maybe I can help." Castiel reached a hand out towards him.

Dean eyed the hand warily. With angels, even your best angel bud, you could never tell what you were going to get.

"What're you going to do?"

"First, I need to take the drugs out of you." Cas' eyes flicked to the bags hanging from the stand. "They won't help you."

"Oh great, I'm getting shot full of crap I don't need. Thanks for that encouraging news, Doctor Castiel."

His friend bristled. "I put you back together," he said in a low, restrained voice, the one that suggested that Dean was being particularly obtuse. "I know more about how humans, especially you, work than any doctor in the world."

Dean resisted the urge to say, "Physically, maybe." Cas didn't really have much to feel good about these days, so he'd let him preen his tailfeathers a little.

Cas pulled up Dean's sleeve, making him jump a little.

"A little warning, dude!"

Castiel looked to the heavens, as if to say, _You see what I have to deal with_. "It needs touch to work, Dean." He splayed his fingers and, one by one, fit them into the burn on Dean's arm. The pain that had been coursing through him was replaced by a blessed numbness, seeping through him. His scar warmed and hummed. Dean breathed deeply. Whoa.

"Better than Magic Fingers," he said, and Cas lifted and looked at his other hand. "This is great, thanks Cas."

A short while later, the doctor who'd done his colonoscopy came in, wearing a suit this time. Dean tried to think of a reason to switch doctors, maybe to that blonde hottie who kind of looked like a pixie. Were doctors even allowed to have facial hair in hospitals? 'Scrubs' had that Beardface guy, so he guessed it must be. Dammit.

Dean shifted, intending to separate from Cas, but his angel held firm. Much as he hated to believe in destiny, in being a flaming sword, sometimes it seemed like he was fated to look gay. He definitely needed Blondie as a doc now. But what the hell, he'd be out of this hospital one way or another soon enough.

"Hi, Dean. Dr. Foreman here again. Hopefully things will go more smoo... go better this time. I just wanted to ask you a few questions about your medical history."

Shoot. This couldn't possibly go well.

"Shoot," said Dean, trying to pretend he didn't have a man hanging off his arm right now. "Can I get some morphine here though?"

"We put you on a lot of different medications to try and flush the disease out of your system." Haha. Weren't in him anymore, that was for damn sure. "If we add painkillers, we'd be putting your liver at risk."

"I thought you said you didn't know what I had yet."

Castiel leaned forward. "It's a demonic virus forged in the pits of hell," he confided.

The other two stared at him. Dr. Foreman looked ready to drag him into the psych wing for questioning.

Dean elbowed him. "You'll have to forgive my friend here. He reads too many comics. Puts the word demon in front of everything nowadays."

"Right," said the doctor slowly. "To answer your question, Dr. House's cases tend to be pretty complicated, yours included, so we like to eliminate as many possibilities as we can while the disease is still in the early stages."

"Well, you better start eliminating soon, cause I think I'm going to need pain meds."

"We'll get on that. I know, it's not fun." The doctor looked at the yellowed paper of the medical records Dean usually stashed in the Impala. When it came to injuries, Dad's motto was 'know thyself', although the knowing had mostly fallen to Dean. "Lemme ask you, what's with all the injuries? They seem to happen pretty regularly."

"Sam and Dad and me, we used to be pretty into the boxing, though Sam not so much. I got really got into competing, though."

"Nose is pretty straight for a boxer."

"Good thing for plastic surgery, huh?" Oh shit, they were going to wonder about that one, he'd never mentioned surgeries like that.

"What about all the stab wounds, all the stitches you needed over the years? You into sword-fighting, too?"

"I am," said Cas.

Dean forced out a chuckle. "He LARPs," he lied. Funnily enough, the doctor seemed to know what he meant. "Me, I'm just not good at telling who's armed when I'm drunk and go into the wrong bar. Or right bar, depending how you look at it."

"Think I'd go with 'wrong' on that one." The doctor sighed. "You don't have a home, you spend your time getting drunk and beaten up-"

"You should see the other guys."

"-in fights where you're outnumbered, are you sure you don't want us to, uh, send someone for you to talk to?"

"What, you want me to get into a play-by-play?"

"You know what I mean. We can get you some help, maybe get you out of that rut. Young guy like you, you shouldn't be in the hospital every few months."

Dean smiled. He'd done his time in the loony bin. Doc Foreman better butt out of his business and soon. "I'm fine. A little sick of hospitals, though I guess you wouldn't know the feeling, but otherwise? Fantastic."

The doctor raised an eyebrow. "I've known a lot of guys with those kind of habits. I know where it ends up, and it's never 'fine'."

The smile was still on Dean's face. "Sucks to be them, I guess."

Shaking his head, Dr. Foreman gave up. Good. "There are a few more things I was wondering about. See my colleague, she loves little charts and stuff, so she did one up of your hospital visits." He held it up.

"Dude, that's lame." Totally the kind of thing Sammy would do, though. He knew his li'l bro had a thing for docs, maybe he should try to hook him up with that one. If Sam came back. He hoped his brother was okay, was eating proper food and not just that rabbitty crap. That part of his mind that was always aware of Sam was starting to chafe with needing to know where the little bitch was.

Dr. Foreman restrained himself on the issue of his coworker. "Wanna tell me why you sustained so many more injuries when you were 22, 23?"

Jeez, this guy was acting like Henrikson now. "We just needed more money. My brother quit boxing to have more time for school, so I stepped up my game." Except since hunting never paid, it was more a matter of buying Sam more study time.

The doctor's eyes widened. "Oh. Wow, that's..." He trailed off, looking lost for a moment. When he met Dean's eyes again, he was cool and collected once more. "You were boxing professionally?"

"Just for the purses really."

The doctor's eyes narrowed. "I thought you were a, uh, 'bounty hunter'."

Dean waved his hand. "Switched from boxing when the docs were worried about the concussions - see, I listen, I'm a good patient." Actually, Dad had made him wear a hockey helmet - mouthguard freaking included - on hunts for months. It had been awful and he'd looked like a drooling fool. At least one good thing about Sam not being there for that was the lack of photographic evidence. "Just on the roadtrip with my brother at the moment, though. Abandoned buildings, Hollywood, B&Bs, that kinda stuff. That's why it's been a while since I got stuck in one of these stupid things." He tugged at his hospital wear.

Dr. Foreman seemed like he still had a lot he wanted to probe about - as if Dean hadn't put up with enough probing from him already. Rubbing his eyes, Dean faked a few jaw-cracking yawns until the doctor finally took the hint and skedaddled.

"Cas," said Dean, "you know I'm cool with listening to you most of the time, but you really gotta learn to not talk when there's someone else around and either me or them are asking questions. Got that? You just don't lie enough."

"My silence would still be a lie of omission."

"Please, no one cares about those. It's for the job, the big guy'll understand." Dean turned on the TV and started channel flipping.

"I thought you wanted to sleep?"

"Naw, just pretending to get that doctor out before you said anything else to blow our cover." He focused his attention on the screen. "Stupid commercials, nope, hmm - tantalisingly gross, yummy, ugh that sucks, maybe, sweet! Here we go."

Castiel tilted his head and watched the show with intense concentration, as if trying to understand the mysteries of humankind that couldn't be gotten from fusing a bone together.

"Television doesn't meet my expectations," he said. "I can't tell what they're thinking, and I haven't seen real humans acting like that."

"That's because we're watching Dr. Sexy, MD," Dean pointed out. "It's supposed to screw with you."

"I don't think I like being 'screwed with'."

Dean smiled. You could always hear the quotation marks in Cas' speech when he tried out new phrases.

"Television goes by different rules than real life. Doesn't mean it isn't predictable. I'll explain the rules to you. See, Dr. Sexy is going to tell Hottie Nurse, the one who's always grabbing his ass, how he feels about her, but since nothing exciting's supposed to happen for three more episodes, she's gonna run off and sleep with her ex."

"Ex what?"

"I dunno actually. Since it's Dr. Sexy, MD, I'm gonna assume it's her ex-fiance who got left at the altar because of her commitment issues or his skin cancer or some shit."

"So we expect Dr. Sexy to find out to increase dramatic tension, but in three episodes they will 'hook up' nonetheless?"

"Here's hoping."

Dean was really getting into the next scene, where an unidentified ex-patient stole a pair of Dr. Sexy's cowboy boots for revenge, when Cas asked, "Why would anyone want the doctor and nurse in a relationship? He is not worthy of her."

Dammit, now he was going to have to wait and find out who the thief was the same time as Dr. Sexy.

"TV's not supposed to be fair, Cas. He's the main character, so he's supposed to be special and deserve good stuff, even if he's a dick. That's why he got that promotion to department head last week. Plus, any woman would be _more _than happy to have him cuz he's awesome and is a badass doctor."

"Bad, maybe. Even you would have a better bedside manner."

Dean scowled. "Are you maligning my bedside skills? Dude, you do not criticise anything about me involving the word bed, got it? Now shut up and let's watch this already."

"Is there a reason Dr. Piccolo is taking so long to tell her patient about his terminal disease?"

Sigh. Dean turned on the closed captioning. "It's another human thing. Sometimes it doesn't really make sense to do something, but it'll make someone feel better, so that's why you do it."

"Like you being here, for Sam."

"Uh... what?"

"You know the future. A doctor is not going to be able to heal diseases forged in Hell. The only reason you're here now is because Sam prefers it this way."

"Sure, like that, I guess. But wait, you're the one who got me here. Doesn't that mean you're doing the same thing I am?" Uh-oh. Seemed like his friend was getting more human all the time. Though this particular bit of progress might not be so bad.

"It seemed like a hospital might be the best place to provide you some comfort."

"Mayb-ooh, it's back from commercial!" Dean interrupted, and wouldn't listen to a word out of Castiel after that.

He was so engrossed in his show that he didn't notice the strange presence watching him from outside his room until the credits rolled around...

"What the hell!" he squawked. This fucking place was so messed up.

Did no one else in this damn hospital get cable? They were so deprived they had to stand around watching patients - patients who, he might add, weren't doing anything that interesting?

"I still don't understand human behaviour after thousands of years. I can understand why they would have to look even closer."

"What? Cas, no, this is wrong, okay? One does not stand idly by and let a bunch of PERVERTS-" he hoped they heard that one- "watch you to try and understand people's behaviour! Unless there's a mission, no one should be standing around watching people through the glass! Close the damn blinds. Friggin' nurse opens 'em every morning. It's probably a conspiracy." He growled.

Castiel made a flicking motion and the blinds whooshed shut.

"Now that we have 'em off our backs, what should we do?"

"I was going to sit here." Dean raised his eyebrows, expecting to hear more about Cas' plans, but... right, Cas. Probably loved getting timeouts in angel school. Well, for once he was cool with this. Working himself into a rage over first Sam, then the lack of privacy in this hospital, not to mention Doc Foreman's questions, had been tiring, worryingly so.

His friend sat by him until Dean fell asleep, holding on to his arm and holding off the pain.

The doctors scattered from outside their patient's room at a page from Cameron. They met her in the display room, fluorescent panels wall-to-wall.

"Guys," she said, "come take a look at these x-rays."

"Well, he's a little bow-legged," said Chase, "but-"

"Not that one! This one." She held up an x-ray of Dean's torso. Elaborate symbols, none of them decipherable, were etched into every last one of his ribs.

"Oh my God. I've never seen anything like that before."

"Rib art!" interjected House.

Cameron ignored him. "What do you think it could be?"

"Parasites," he said finally. "Must be. The symmetric patterns are strange, though. Something about this is familiar; I know I've seen a case like this somewhere."

"Really?" Chase said. "Wow."

"This is going to bother me, I know it." House picked up some of the other x-rays. "What I don't understand is that there should be some sign of his _numerous_breaks throughout the years, but look - limbs, pelvis, torso, all virgin unbroken bone except for the Etch-a-Sketch on his ribs. And the scars that came up during his physical don't match up, either."

"Do you think he's making it up? Munchausen's Syndrome, maybe?"

"The brother had to have proofed the list first," said Foreman.

"I know it's a long shot," said Cameron, "but maybe the brother has Munchausen's by proxy. Or maybe they got abused as kids and this is his way of telling us, and the brother feels bad so he plays along."

"I asked the patient about the breaks already. He said he used to be a boxer."

"Did he mention any awards?" asked House.

Foreman shook his head. "Purses but no awards."

"Ah, a bad boxer then. Got it."

"He said he had plastic surgery to deal with the worst of it, mainly the face."

"I knew a face like that couldn't be real," muttered Chase.

"Doesn't explain all the lacerations," Cameron said.

Foreman shrugged. "Says he just likes to fight, or... get knifed... he's a little-" He lifted his hand to make the 'crazy' sign but thought better of it. It would be unprofessional.

"Burns?"

"He _claims_to be a volunteer firefighter," Chase said. "Though if they're always on the road, I dunno how that would work."

House shuffled the sheets on the table. "Did he even mention plastic surgery on the travesty he calls records? They'd have to be the best plastic surgeons in the world not to leave any marks. I think I'm going to ask Taub about this."

"Really," said Foreman. "You're going to bring Taub into this now?"

"We'd still _have _Taub if you hadn't screwed everything up."

"Or if you didn't disappear to the crazyhouse."

"Foreman!" said Chase.

"Ouch! Our panther is growing out his claws now that he's on the prowl again. Looking for love with another medical professional you can screw with the career of?"

Foreman fumed.

The doctors peered even closer at the x-rays. Their hypotheses only added to the strangeness of the case.

"There could be excess calcium deposits on his bones, maybe even originating from the ribs. Cancer maybe, with paraneoplastic syndrome?"

"Might be warping."

"Could be extreme inflammation - but he should have a fever by this point if that's the case."

"I think his growth might be a little stunted - look at the bone plates. Malnutrition maybe? Calcium deficiency?"

"Digestive issues? He had an impacted bowel."

"Cuuuuuut!" House smacked two of the celluloid sheets together. "Chase, schedule a laparoscopic pelvic exam. We need to get a look at those ribs, get a swab. Cameron, work on the calcium issue: biopsy his thyroid and check hormone and iodine levels. Keep an eye on his temperature. Foreman, and get an x-ray on the brother, see if his bone damage matches the records we got for him." He stared at the x-rays one last time. "While you're x-raying the brother, get him tested for transplant options. Whoever's done first can get to the lab and work on the results of the bone marrow biopsy already."

"But the patient doesn't need a transplant. He's not sick enough for that."

"Call it a hunch," said House, "I think he will be if we don't solve this soon."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** thanks to **liliaeth **for promptly correcting me on the nature of Chuck's "Supernatural" series so that I could correct it before this chapter ventured into the light of day! Please ignore any references in the chapter to comics.

**Chapter 4**

Wilson was really, really glad that Amber had preferred thick, opaque shower curtains.

"Not the time, House!" he called. He had to jump against the wall of the bath when a cane started jabbing into the aforementioned curtains. If not for the fear that House could lock himself in the bathroom and overdose, Wilson would've installed one of those little chain locks that hotels had on the doors. On all the doors.

House said something that the running water drowned out.

"Can't hear you from in here," Wilson said, a little smugly. He yelped as the water turned freezing cold. "This apartment didn't have plumbing problems until you got here." Giving up on the rest of his morning shower, he turned off the taps and stuck out a hand. "Towel, please."

There was a phlegmy spitting noise from outside before his hand made contact with something fuzzy. He pulled it in and inspected it for any gobs.

"This is a hand towel."

"Sorry, already spit on yours."

Darnit. Wilson liked that towel. He wasn't about to ask for House's (who knew where it had been), so he made do with the one House had given him, which was feeling smaller and wetter all the time.

"Are you about to go all 'Psycho' on me, or do you have a better reason for interrupting my one House-free moment of the morning?"

"Remember those x-rays from Delaware I showed you a few months ago?"

"Of course! Who wouldn't remember some novelty case from months back?"

The cane poked past the previously-safe boundary of the curtain. Wilson jumped. As House's face started to intrude as well, he slapped the tiny towel over his front, yelping.

"Should I take that a 'yes'?" asked House, and Wilson realised that House's eyes were, thankfully, closed. For now.

"Get out!" Wilson yelled, and fortunately House listened for once.

It was a while before he made it out of the bathroom. That tiny square of terry hadn't helped. He threw it at House as he headed to the kitchen for breakfast.

"So, those x-rays."

"What x-rays?" Wilson pointed at the refrigerator. "The ones that just showed up on the fridge door?"

"Exactly," said House. "Look like the ones from that e-mail forward that puzzled Osteology in the fall, right?"

"So? I've seen those. Thought it was some sort of termite on a corpse. You interrupted my shower just to drag them out again?"

"Except you haven't. This was taken at our hospital yesterday."

"Huh. No wonder you got that patient."

"Yeah, that's another thing. Cuddy begged me to take this case without even knowing about this. She barely knew anything about the case."

"It's not the first case she's taken on as a favour."

"They didn't even know each other, and, clearly, you haven't looked at the freezer yet."

"If this is another case of digging up a patient's pets, I'm not interested. In fact, I don't plan on looking in there for a week now."

House clapped the freezer door. There was a poster pinned up there that Wilson took one look at and decided to ignore.

"House, you make fake wanted posters all the time. The last cafeteria lady who tried to charge you for lunch was accused of public indecency and extortion. I know this guy took your cane, but-"

"It's not fake."

"Wait, what? He actually did all this stuff?" The grave digging definitely added towards his termites theory. "He's a murderer." The fact that he bolstered his theory before noticing the major crimes was scarily House-like. Wilson massaged his temples.

"But he's my murderer," said House, fake puppy-eyes on, before getting down to business and snatching half of Wilson's bagel. "Don't worry. When I'm done with him, it's back to the feds he goes. Before that, though, I need to find out why she's doing this."

"'It's personal' is like an engraved invitation to you, isn't it?"

"She said they sent someone she could trust to her." House stared pointedly at Wilson, who was beginning to see where he was going with this.

"Oh no," he said, backing away. "Ohhhh no. You are not pulling me into your issues with Cuddy. She doesn't trust me, anyway; I'm friends with you."

"Please, you're an oncologist. If you can make people trust you when telling them about their slow and painful death, you can fool Cuddy into it for the length of this case." House smirked. Oh no, he was about to pull out his trump card. "Besides, she's your friend too. Aren't you worried about whatever she's getting involved in?"

Wilson ran a hand through his hair. "I'll talk to her. If she's pulling a Maid Marian, something's definitely going on, and things might not be safe for her."

"Get her to trust you more than whoever set this up, and she'll fold like a cheap napkin and tell you. If someone's holding something over her head, I'll just find something to hold over theirs."

"House, that's not going to work with a hardened criminal! If you let this pull you in, you're going to get hurt."

"And Cuddy's not?"

"Is that what this is really about? You sure you're not just angry that you aren't at the top of the list of people she trusts?"

"Hey, if Cuddy wants to involve herself with thugs, that's her business," House snapped. "She's the most lenient hospital head I could get stuck with, so I wouldn't want anything to happen to her."

"Right, that's exactly why it's a problem. You have to know your usual conniving won't work here like it does with the general public. Yes, this case is weird, and that puts it right up your alley. But you can't get carried away. You need to report Dean Winchester, House. No matter what Cuddy says."

"No problem! As soon as the case is done–"

"You don't think it would be a better idea to do it now?"

House shrugged. "Medically, it's best for him to be here. Especially with his strange disease and-" he tapped the sheets in front of them- "wacky bones." He grinned.

"I guess he's lucky he doesn't have the flu. You really think your timing is going to work out on this one?"

"It's me: do you really think a patient is allowed to get better without my say so?"

The patient probably wasn't even allowed to shower without House's say so.

* * *

Cameron grabbed Chase. "You have to come see this."

"Is there a sock on the microscope?" asked Foreman. "Should I be leaving?"

"No, you look too. I've never seen anything like it. I don't even know what it is."

Chase jumped up from the microscope. "Oh my gosh. Our patient's name is Dean, right?"

"Yeah," Cameron answered as Foreman peered into the eyepiece.

"And his brother's name is Sam."

Cameron nodded.

Chase laughed incredulously. "Oh you've _got_ to be kidding me. I can't believe I didn't notice." He fidgeted. "Look, I-I have to go home and get something. I think it might be important for the case."

Foreman looked up. "You think you know what this is?"

"It's not really a source I think I can trust, but I think it'll be... weirdly pertinent." He turned to leave. "By the way, check the blood for sulphur."

"Sulphur," Cameron said, skeptical.

"Doesn't fit the symptoms," said Foreman. "He'd be having a lot more respiratory problems. He did mention checking out a lot of abandoned factories, though."

"Test for heavy metal?"

Foreman looked into the microscope again. "There's _something _in there. Let's test for both. At any rate, I'm paging House."

Cameron nodded, and they got back to work.

Mind racing, Chase was heading back to his and Allison's apartment.

He'd known something was up about their patient, though he hadn't been able to put his finger on it. Of course, he wouldn't have been able to imagine the answer if he hadn't seen the blood sample for himself. That's when he'd realised that he'd seen it already.

In a book series.

But then the heart attack he'd found so strange had hit him as being the book with the faith healing. The car crash that caused the father's death, which Dean had soon walked away from (coma and severe injury notwithstanding), was like the one with the reaper. The timing and description on the records all matched up with the records.

Neither of them seemed to match up with the actual patient, just like the x-rays.

They still didn't really know who the patient was, though they'd been given a first name. Likewise with his brother. Surely it wasn't a coincidence that they picked names from the books and chose their histories to match?

There was still the sulphur in the blood - no faking that. Were they dealing with a superfan? Not that Chase would know that much about those...

He dragged out his collection of Supernatural books (why he had so many, he didn't know, they were rather over-the-top) from a box interspersed with graphic novels, packed them up and headed back to the hospital. If House had been on clinic duty this week, they would have gotten serious use. At any rate, he'd have something better to do than the crossword while they waited in the morning for their boss to come in.

It turned out the crossword was in full distribution by the time he got in.

"Really? House isn't here yet?"

Cameron shrugged. "No. Where were you?"

Chase dropped the box on the table. "Getting some reading material... about two brothers named Dean and Sam, who are on a permanent road trip looking at a lot of abandoned buildings."

"You managed to obtain their medical records?" Cameron asked, perking up a little.

"Uh... not quite. Here." He handed his colleagues the pertinent volumes. "See for yourselves. I have to make a call." He headed into House's personal office to use the phone. "Dammit! Voicemail. 'Hi Sam, this is Dr. Chase, from your brother's case. We'd like you to come in as soon as possible for x-rays and a few more questions.'" He left his contact information and hung up, returning to the main office. "Well? I did suggest Munchausen's earlier, but I think this is another symptom."

Foreman stood up quickly. "I'll write it on the board."

"Wait," said Cameron, "what do we say, delusions?"

Foreman nodded. "Maybe for a long time, though - the brother's backing him up. They could have been stringing him along for months, keeping him quiet."

"Which means it's probably unrelated to the case. He doesn't take any psych meds, though."

"Yeah, just half his weight in booze every week. Could be self-medicating."

"I phoned the brother," said Chase. "He didn't answer, but he's probably our best hope at getting some real answers."

"We should probably wait to discuss neuro until we can tell how much of the truth he's telling," Foreman conceded. "Remember that guy we wiped the memories of?"

The crew winced in sympathy.

House stumped in. "What are you doing?" he said to Foreman, who was still at the board. "We're out of the black markers, so _you're_ out of luck. Ooh, but who should the green one go to? Chase?" He picked up the blue - the only one that worked anyway - and held it to the board expectantly.

"Turns out our patient's records have a primary source material after all," said Chase, waving a paperback at House, who snatched it and flipped through. His eyes narrowed.

"If there's one thing the patient isn't lying about, it's his name."

"How do you know that?" asked Cameron.

"Call it a hunch. Try and figure it out if you want, it's something I don't feel like sharing with you nimrods."

"House, come on. It could be important."

"So his so-called life is ripped from pulp fiction." House rummaged through the pile until he found one with the FBI on the corner. Things were beginning to click in very strange ways. "Call the author. I think I'm going to want to talk to him."

"Are you going to tell us _why_?" asked Chase, quashing his enthusiasm about the task ahead.

"Not really, no. Let the guessing games commence!"

"This is a waste of time," said Foreman for what must've been the thousandth time since House had hired him. "What if it's crucial to the case?"

"It's not. Our patient is just a conspiracy theorist who managed to sell some hack writer on his crackpot theories, at least for entertainment purposes."

"He did say his friend - the one who said we were dealing with _demons_-" Foreman infused the word with all the scorn it deserved -"read too many comic books."

"Just to be clear, these aren't comics, at all. They are all about demons, though," said Chase.

"I want to see the author," House said. "More importantly, I want to see the reaction on their faces when they see him. At least one of these people is knee-deep in crazy, and I'd like to see who. If it's the patient - which I'm pretty sure it is - it could be a symptom."

Anxious to change the subject, House pulled out his laptop and went to the message board where the x-rays had been posted. He turned it to face his staff. "Look familiar?"

"Whose are these?" Cameron asked.

"Our patient's, from a few months ago. Notice anything different?"

"The carvings look a lot smaller in this one. So either they've gotten bigger-"

"Like I said, parasites."

"Or his bones have gotten smaller."

They all exchanged _'Oh, shit'_ looks.

"Any decrease in bone mass is serious," Foreman said. "If that's what it is, we don't have much time."

"We're going to have to monitor the patient's weight," said Chase. "And deal with the extra calcium in his blood."

"There wasn't any extra calcium in his blood, though," Cameron said. "So where is it going? The thyroid was fine."

"Parasites," House sang.

His team was gearing up to quibble with him over his diagnosis when there was a knock at the entrance. The man at the door was small, bearded and unassuming: definitely the kind of guy who walked into a crowded place with grenades in his pockets. House hoped he wasn't about to get shot again.

"Hey," said the guy, "you're the team treating Dean, right?" He looked around the office, eyes lighting on random objects throughout.

"Why?" House asked. "Who are you?"

The man shifted. "I'm Chuck Shurley, and... whoa." His eyes caught sight of the paperbacks strewn across the table. "You guys know about the Supernatural books?"

Foreman rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me you're another really obsessed fan."

"Not exactly," said Chuck. "I wrote them." He started to pace nervously, avoiding eye contact.

"You're Carver Edlund?" Chase said in surprise. So many questions.

House rose and made his way over to Chuck, smirking. "Speak of the devil."

Chuck shrunk under House's piercing gaze. "Yeah, well, Dean called me in?

"You must know all about Dean."

"I... guess?" Chuck floundered for words.

"Get out and run those tests," House said to his lackeys, neither sure of what tests were left nor breaking eye contact with Chuck. He waited for them to file out before he started talking again. "So you know what Dean is up to. The feds?"

"I know. He's not actually-"

"Save it. He's getting turned in. And if you've known about him all along, I'm pretty sure you could get charged for aiding and abetting."

Chuck gulped. "If you're wondering about the books, I heard a few stories of theirs and added some ghosts and stuff when my publisher told me to. That's all, okay? I wasn't actually there." He stared towards the ceiling in supplication.

"And you think that'll be good enough to keep them off your back? Being associated with a record like that? You could get killed in the line of fire if you're still here when it all goes down." House drew a finger across his neck, moving closer.

The sun came out, piercingly bright, just as the floor beneath them rolled. Missing a good leg to stand on at the best of times, House reached out in vain before falling.

"Sorry!" Chuck yanked him to his feet. "He's not trying to hurt me!" he yelled to the room at large before scampering off like a frightened rabbit.

Another one for the crazy list, perhaps. Clearly, they were _all_ absolutely nutso. It was like being back at the mental hospital. Seeing them greet each other would be like a group session all over again, and he'd had way too many of _those_. He'd learnt his lesson about inciting crazies.

Dean Winchester was a lot like the people he'd known in the ward; too bad they hadn't managed to get him there.

House wondered if there was any way to take advantage of the tremor. He wandered off to see if anything had fallen out of the vending machines.

* * *

Sam had been standing in front of a proliferation of demon guts for a while before he realised his phone was ringing. His hands being as bloody as they were, he scrambled for a while with his jacket sleeve to use it to pick up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Sam! It's Chuck."

"Oh. Hi. Um, I'm a little busy here..." Please not another convention, he thought.

"The demon? Yeah, there'll be more where that came from soon. Do you think you'd be able to get back to the hospital?"

Sam winced. These days, he was walking such a tightrope around Dean, and their fight had made it feel like he'd just fallen off it. Going back was probably the best thing to do – he could hear Bobby's voice in his head grousing at him – but after everything he'd said, it would be a pretty lowering experience.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Chuck? I mean, I didn't leave on the best of terms." He heard an irate mumble in the background that sounded like Dean. "Wait, are you with Dean?"

"He doesn't know I'm calling you," Chuck explained. "I don't even know if I should be. I wouldn't have come myself if it didn't look like things were going south."

Sam's throat was starting to feel tight. "He's not looking so hot, huh?"

Chuck paused for what felt like minutes. "I think it would help if you were here."

"Why are you telling me this, anyway? I thought you didn't like getting involved."

Chuck laughed self-consciously. "Well, Becky likes when authors put themselves in the story, and besides, I saw what was coming. Let's just say I'm skipping a few steps."

"Okay," Sam said slowly, still a little suspicious of his motives. He looked at the mess in front of him, smelled the blood. Nothing good was keeping him here. He headed back.

The blond doctor who had greeted them when they'd arrived was waiting outside his brother's room when he got there.

"Wow," said Sam, "you really keep an eye on the place, huh?"

"You got my message?" the man asked; Sam hadn't. "As I said earlier, I'm Doctor Chase. Let's go get you ready for your x-ray."

"X-ray?" He hoped this wasn't about the Enochian symbols. Craning his neck, he tried to see what was going on in Dean's room, but the blinds were closed.

"There were some... anomalies in your brother's x-rays. We'd like to have yours to compare. A physical and blood test, too, if we can."

"Sure, I guess, if it'll help Dean." Sam was a bit concerned about the blood test. He'd always been diagnosed before any blood had needed to be drawn, and he didn't know how much of a mark demons would leave on the results.

"So your brother and his friends like sci-fi?" Dr. Chase asked casually as Sam followed him through the halls.

Sam had trouble answering. He wasn't used to hearing 'his friends' attached to Dean, at least not without the word 'girl'; it had taken him years at Stanford to hear the term attached to himself.

"Not really, no." Then he remembered Chuck. "Well, I guess they're getting into it lately."

"I've read the Supernatural books. Imaginative stuff. Your brother seemed inspired by it when he wrote up his history."

Play innocent. "What do you mean?"

"It didn't exactly match up," was all the doctor would say.

What was it Dean said when perving about being a virgin? His body had been made over, no scars or anything. Oh _no_. Sam should've given the doctors a tenth of that list. Dean being sick was throwing them all off their game.

"Maybe I gave you the wrong list," Sam said desperately. "Maybe it was the, uh, character sheet for our Supernatural..." what were those things called? "...RPG?"

Turning, the doctor gave him a doubtful look. Sam scratched the back of his head.

"Look, I know you want to protect your brother's mind, but it does more harm than good. His delusions are severe enough that I think he could cause himself and others harm. We'll set up a psych consult once we're done with the case."

Sam didn't think he'd be able to get his jaw back into the upright position anytime soon, but he definitely wanted to be around the next time one of the doctors spoke to Dean. Sparks were bound to fly.

During his physical, the doctor kept referring to some of the papers that Dean had made him bring in.

"What's that?" asked Sam.

"Your supposed medical records."

"_What?_" Dean had never mentioned that Sam's were involved, just told him it was more of the same. He was never being Dean's messenger boy again. "Lemme see those."

He recognised his dad's cramped handwriting at the beginning. Surprising how many vaccines he'd gotten; it had always seemed like tetanus was enough for dear old Dad. Around the nineties, the writing switched to Dean's, becoming thinner and surer as it went along. Even his university years were recorded.

"I've never seen this before," he couldn't help saying.

The doctor gave him a strange look. "Who wrote it, then?"

"My dad and brother, I guess. I didn't know they kept track." He handed it back to Dr. Chase.

After a lot of poking and prodding, Dr. Chase was looking at him even more suspiciously. "Your medical history checks out. So why did your brother lie about his?"

Sam's 'honesty is the best policy' policy was backfiring big-time. "I don't know." He didn't know how his brother would receive him when he came back this afternoon, so he didn't want to mess up any stories. Dean would be able to come up with some rationale.

"I have to ask, where all the injuries are coming from?"

"Sports, mainly, and, later on..." Sam sighed. Love of his brother was all that could force him to continue. "Really kinky girlfriends." Such was the power of Dean that he made Sam tell awkward lies to strangers even when he wasn't around.

The doctor could barely look at him now. The feeling was mutual.

"Your family still in boxing?" Dr. Chase asked quickly, facing steadfastly in the opposite direction.

"Pardon?"

"Boxing. Your brother told Dr. Foreman that your family were professionals."

Not bad, Dean. "Not anymore. I quit when I could, chose brains over brawn."

"This may be difficult to talk about, but it's important we find out so we can help you two." Oh no, the doctor's voice was getting quieter and, turning back around, he was putting on one of those supposedly-tender faces. Amateur. "Sam, did anyone ever try to hurt you? Were you ever abused?"

Ugh, he had gotten so sick of that question over the years. After some arguments with Dad, he'd have been tempted to say 'yes' if not for Dean. Teenage self-righteousness went a long way towards considering 'not getting to do what you want' abuse.

Sam looked straight in the doctor's eyes. "No, I definitely wasn't."

"I know it's not always easy to talk about, but admitting it can be the first step. Was it your dad? Dean?"

It had been so long since he'd faced those kinds of questions that it hit him a little harder than it had used to. He'd forgotten that they used to blame Dean, too.

"What? That's bullshit! Dean would never- and Dad, he wouldn't-" Sam sputtered a little, eyes narrowing, trying to get himself together. "You can think what you want about my family, but we never hurt anyone, especially not each other."

Being basically from memory, and Dad, that speech wasn't quite as true as he wished it was, but the doctor didn't have to know that. At this point, Sam just wanted to get out of here and make sure that Dean was okay. Chuck's call had him anxious.

"Are you done yet?" he asked.

"Are you sure you haven't noticed any changes in your brother lately?" Dr. Chase returned.

"I told you, he's been acting more pissed-off." Sam took a while to think about it. So much had happened within the past few months, past few years even, that he didn't know what 'normal' was for his brother anymore. "Maybe he's more depressed, but we've been through a lot lately. Ask his... his… friend, Castiel, maybe." Still felt weird to say. "Can we finish this up? I want to see him already."

"Sorry, Sam," Dr. Chase said briskly. "We still have to get you x-rayed, then you're free to go."

Getting an x-ray was kind of embarrassing, although Sam had expected some measure of awkwardness. The radiologist running her hands over his torso was better than he had expected, at least, since she didn't look like she wanted to take a bite of him like Becky had. Dr. Chase looked less pleased with each new result that came in.

"So you have injuries that sync up with your friend's books, while your brother is just pretending to." Dr. Chase shook his head. "I don't understand. Why are you going along with any of this? What good can it possibly be doing you or your brother? I know you two must be close, but…"

"You have a brother?"

The doctor shook his head.

"Then you can't possibly understand," Sam answered, and headed towards Dean's room.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Sam hadn't expected the smile.

Maybe it was just because he hadn't seen it for so long. Dad, when the universe aligned just so, had had that same one grin Dean was giving him now.

Apparently it was all in the context, because Sam hadn't recognised it as belonging to a specific mood until now, when Dean was sporting it. Here he was, standing at the threshold of the room and Dean let loose that grin and didn't hold it back even as he said, "You're late, you tool! Don't tell me you didn't bring me anything to eat, either, the food here is crap!"

It wasn't 'all is forgiven,' or even much of a clearing of the air, but it was a start. Sam found himself smiling as well. This, they could work with.

"Popped some demons one," he said, warily getting to the crux of the matter, "didn't find anything out, figured I might as well come see your ugly mug." He eyed his brother, almost cringing at what he thought might come next.

Dean's smile faded a bit, but remained intact. He jerked his head towards the chair on his right. "C'mere already, ya big lug. I don't want to fight anymore, Sammy, not against you. Guess I can't blame you for getting out and trying to find answers. It's the way Dad raised us, it's the hunter thing to do."

Being accused of typical hunter behaviour almost stung as much as any rebuke would've, but when Sam wanted to protest, he took a good look at his brother and shut his mouth.

Dean looked older than usual, weary, and it hit Sam that his brother was actually in his thirties now and, for once, looking it. Sam slipped into the seat by the bed to get a closer look.

A chill slipped up his spine. There were streaks of grey along the strands by Dean's temples. How long had those been there? His skin was sallow and wan, except for where bruises mottled it, and his hands lolled limply from his bony wrists.

"I know I'm not looking my best," Dean interrupted, "but I bet Cas that I could get the phone number off one of the nurses next time they come around, and I still intend to deliver."

So Dean was going to pretend all systems were go. Fine, Sam would indulge him for now. "You wagered against an angel about sex?"

Dean raised an eyebrow. "You see anyone else worth wagering with?"

Scowling at them at from across the hall was Bobby, waiting impatiently for them to "have their chatty time already"; he must've driven all night since Sam's call in order to be here now. Sam caught a glimpse of Chuck pacing.

"Besides," said Dean primly, "a number's not about sex, it's about communication."

"Yeah, you're ALL about the communicating." Sam rolled his eyes. What a ridiculous thing for them to be discussing right now. He couldn't pretend like this."Dean, please. Can we - can we try to deal with this?"

"Aw, why so serious?"

"Stop. We should be going through this together."

"Why else do you think I was trying to get you to stay?" Dean held up a hand to still Sam's arguments, faltered and dropped it. "Water under the bridge. I've had enough, uh, experiences now that the dying is the easy part, for me; I shoulda seen that it'd be harder for you to go through."

"You're not dying," insisted Sam, trying to convince them both by denying as loudly as he could. "We're going to find a way to get you better."

"Yeah, you've done it before." Dean threw a punch at his shoulder that landed with a scary lack of the 'oomph' that even friendly Dean punches had.

"I'm going to go get everyone and we'll talk about it, okay? Figure something out together."

Dean shrugged, as if to say 'if you insist'. Sam got up to head out.

"Hey, Sam," Dean called.

He paused and turned. "Yeah?"

"Good thing you're back. Now we got someone to put demon's traps on the ceiling."

Dean grinned again, and Sam had to smile back. That was the difference there between Dad and Dean right there, he realised. Dad would've said something like that to scold him for lack of dedication; Dean said it to say he was glad to have him around.

"You dumbasses finally over your soap opera?" Bobby greeted him when he joined them in the hall.

Sam nodded. "I need help planning our next move, though. Can we head to the caf, talk it out?"

"Without Dean, you mean." Bobby spun his wheelchair around. Chuck jumped to defend his feet. "You're makin' a mistake, boy, if you want to do this without your brother. One more set of eyes never hurts."

"Dean's not happy with the idea of me doing this. We just made up, I'm not going to rub it in his face."

"You don't think he'll keep track?" Chuck asked.

"I know he will. Can't stop me, though."

"And our sudden disappearance-"

"Dinner."

"He's not going to ask?"

Sam whirled around, throwing his arms out. "Guys!" he exclaimed. "As long as I bring him back some pie, I think he'll be reconciled!"

"This is a damn fool plan," Bobby muttered.

"Oof!" Sam's side was suddenly one bruise richer. "Uh, Bobby? Cafeteria's that way, not, you know, in my kidneys."

"Humph."

They got their food and gathered at a table by the windows as Sam spread out his map of the area, pinpointing where he suspected demons would go. "I didn't get much out of the demons I went after today."

"Demons, plural? You crazy, boy? You need backup to go after more than one." Bobby peered closer. "You sure you're not using your powers again?"

Sam clenched his jaw. "I told you, I'm not doing that anymore."

Bobby turned his head and stared at Chuck, who shrugged. "He's really not."

"Told you. I think I can handle two demons alone after all this time."

"Not if it's a trap, you can't," said Bobby. "And we know how much demons like those."

"I can handle it," Sam insisted. "Chuck, have you seen any ambushes?"

"Not exactly." He sounded uncertain.

"If you have anything to share, like the future perhaps, now would be a great time to contribute."

Chuck rubbed his forehead. Prophetic headaches were long-lasting. "Actually, uh, I can't."

"Why not, Chuck?" Sam slammed his hands on the table. If this was what Chuck was providing by 'skipping a few steps', he wasn't impressed. They needed to get an answer out of those demons, and Sam was low enough on resources right now as it was.

"Sam." Bobby shook his head at him.

"I threw a wrench in the works by showing up and calling you back," Chuck explained. "Things have already diverged from what I foresaw."

"Great," said Sam. "That's just freaking great."

"I know it looks bad, but trust me, it's better this way. And I know it's not my usual style, but I can still try to help you, have your back."

Sam made a noise of derision and thought he'd pass; the offer had Chuck practically twitching in fear.

"Really," said Sam, "you think not knowing what will happen is a better alternative? And I can handle myself fine, thanks."

"Actually," mumbled Chuck, "you couldn't."

Bobby snickered, and Chuck shot Sam an apologetic smile.

"That's why you called me, then."

"Pretty much, yeah. The doctors were going to want to see me anyway, once they found my books."

It felt good to realise they had another ally, even if it had to be a non-hunter. "Oh. Thanks then, Chuck."

"So do you want me to go with you?"

Sam shook his head. "We'll figure something out. I don't think our regular drive thru ganking is going to hold up." He poked at his salad, at a loss for a good strategy.

"If you require a partner, I can help you."

They all jumped. Sam's salad went all over the table. He stared at it sadly; that'd been the last one. This cafeteria was way too Dean-friendly, ironic considering the food they were serving him upstairs.

"Dean sent me to find out what was taking so long," said Cas.

"Yeah, we're just eating. How's the search for God going, Cas?" Sam asked, trying to be nice. Angels might not care about making conversation, but he did. Not to mention, though it was a long shot, that if anyone could help Dean, it was God.

Cas looked at him with more emotion than Sam was used to seeing, eyes narrowed. "I've put it off. Dean is the one who currently needs my help."

"You picked Dean over God?" Sam asked in surprise.

"I'm certain that helping Dean is doing my Father's work," Castiel said shortly. "There is no 'picking' involved." He glanced at the maps. "You need my help if you're going after these demons."

"Wait." Sam sent a look of appeal to Bobby and Chuck, but they stayed quiet, eyes on their food. It seemed no one else was caught up in this discussion like he was. Well, he wanted to _know_. "What have you been doing all this time if you haven't been looking for God?" Trying to picture Castiel in his free time led to images of the angel going around impaling Antichrists.

"I stayed with Dean," Castiel snapped, eyes blazing, "as you might have done. Someone had to."

Recoiling at the intensity of the angel's gaze, Sam grit his teeth to keep from yelling at him. The fact that someone else, ally though he might be, was telling him what to do when it came to Dean was incredibly galling.

"I couldn't sit around," he protested. "If Dean is dying, I have to try to save him."

"It would be a wasted effort on your part if Dean's not interested in being saved."

Was he serious? Sam scrutinised him closely. He always looked so solemn that Sam didn't really know what to look for.

"That's not... that's not like him, he wouldn't-"

"Sam, for God's sake (no offense, Castiel)," Bobby interrupted, "how do you think he took it when you left to go after demons? It's last year all over again."

Sam's head was reeling over the revelations they were throwing at him. "I still need to do this," he said firmly. "I can do it at night when it's visiting hours."

"Sure," said Chuck, "demon hunting sounds way easier at night. Why do you guys hunt at night so much? It'd be a lot less creepy in the daytime. I can barely see anything with those flashlights."

Sam glared at him. "You try salting and burning during the daytime."

Chuck shrugged. "Just saying. Writing'd be a lot easier if I could see what you guys were doing. Bigger flashlights maybe?"

Massaging his temples, Sam tried to focus on one of the impossible conversations going on around him.

"It's not really that bad with Dean, is it?" he pleaded. "Is it my fault?"

"Your well-being is one of many concerns of his," said Castiel, who didn't seem about to provide the same solace for Sam that he did for Dean. Sam tried to picture the two of them hanging out - staring contests? commandment-breaking? - and failed. Attempting to imagine it kind of blew his mind; what Dean got out of it was beyond him.

"Okay, Dean has his issues," Chuck cut in as Castiel opened his mouth again, "but you being back, Sam, it'll help."

"You've seen it?" Sam asked hopefully.

Chuck shook his head. "I don't have to see it. I know you two, better than yourselves sometimes."

"Kind of creepy there, Chuck."

"Hey, I didn't ask for it. But knowing you the way I do, I can tell you that coming back was a good step."

Sam smiled. "That helps."

"Enough word-hugs," Bobby said. "Welcome back to the team, Sam. You leave again, I'll hunt you down and kick yer ass." He and Chuck laughed at that, but Sam didn't; it didn't sound like Bobby was joking. He made a quick getaway and went to buy something to replace his scattered salad.

Castiel got up and followed him. "I think Dean wants pie."

In an instant, Sam perversely discarded his earlier idea of appeasing Dean with food. Send an angel to be his delivery boy, would he?

"Dean always wants pie. Doesn't mean he should get it."

"He wants soup, too." Castiel paused, hovering over the counters. "I'll get him soup."

"Soup? You sure? Knock yourself out, I guess."

Lazily, Sam watched as Castiel ladled a container full to brimming, spilling some of the scalding liquid over his hands; Dean always insisted on having things filled to their utmost. It caught the cashier's attention, too. By the time Castiel went up to pay, wiping his wet, red hands on his coat without leaving any marks on it, she looked ready to cross herself and run away. Where had that money come from, anyway? Sam didn't put it past his brother to demand something without providing the necessary funds. He scrounged for change - hospital food was expensive - for a minute before striding out back to their table. He saw Castiel was in conversation with Dr. House as he went past.

"Ow!" Something stabbed Sam in his side (of course, it had to be the same one Bobby'd run into). "What the hell?" He spun around to see Dr. House, incriminating fork in his hand. Sam glowered. A dark-haired man stood up, trying to restrain the doctor and apologise simultaneously.

Dean had told Sam how bad Castiel was at disseminating. Sam dragged him away.

"I'm also trying to contact other angels," Castiel was saying as they went back. Bobby still gave Sam the stinkeye. Usually Dean received the brunt of his tetchiness; his attentions must have transferred now that Dean was ill.

He sat back down. "What do you mean, 'also'?"

"You asked what I was doing if not looking for God."

"Yeah, like half an hour ago," he muttered. No wonder Dean had buddied up with Castiel, with the former's inability to stay on track and the latter's bulldoggish nature.

"Careful, Sam," said Bobby, chuckling. "Green-eyed monster's gettin' a little close there."

Sam scowled. That was patently untrue. He wasn't the least bit jealous. If Dean wanted to... go off and drive around in a van with 'Cas' solving mysteries, they could go right ahead.

Oh, who was he kidding?

Dean would never drive around in a van, and Castiel would never stay in one long enough to get through a case.

Castiel surveyed the room as if searching for the aforementioned monster. "It may take an angel to help Dean. With his vessel ailing, Michael has a vested interest."

"Oh no," Chuck said, eyes widening. "You're Angelic's Most Wanted. If they find you... I've seen what they can do to you." He shuddered. "Let alone Dean."

"Chuck's right," said Sam, "it's too risky."

"There may come a time when Dean will be beyond any help but theirs." Castiel lowered his head. "Without Dean, I don't know..." He trailed off, lost and small. "My grace is dimming with each day. This might be my best chance to help."

"That's not true. You said you were going to help me with the demons, right?" He wished he could come up with better encouragement for the angel. Dean would be better at this; he'd just use his and Castiel's crazy eye language and then, one minute and ten silent conversations later, it'd all be resolved. Without Dean, Sam didn't know, either.

"I can't use my powers on them anymore," Castiel confessed.

Shit, that would've been helpful. "No big deal, we'll do it the old-fashioned way, send some Latin their way."

"My powers were the old-fashioned way."

He leaned in. Had that been... something resembling a joke? He couldn't tell by Castiel's expression, stony as ever. But maybe Dean wasn't as bad an influence as Sam had thought.

* * *

House was lying in wait.

Good thing Chase had brought in some light reading material. If any of it was true (not that much of it could be, considering the ghosts), he was going to have some great barbs to draw the truth from the patient with. Daddy alone was a minefield.

Wilson threw open the door, coming unsuspecting into his office. He groaned when he saw House there.

"Is there a quota on how many private venues of mine you can infiltrate in one day?"

"Wait'll you see what's on my checklist for tonight. Half the points right there."

Casting a baleful glance at House's feet propped up on his desk, Wilson struggled to get his lab coat off.

"I was about to go eat," he said, tossing his coat onto the desk, probably in an attempt to keep House from seeing any of the documents on his desk. Too late!

"Great, my treat."

"Wait a minute! When did you get ahold of my wallet?"

House smiled. He had conditioned Wilson's mind well.

"When you were in the shower, duh." Along with planting a bug in his chest pocket.

"You mean that narrow window when you weren't in there too?"

Overhearing as he walked by, the male nurse who ran the clinic winked at Wilson, who looked down sheepishly.

"What are you reading, anyway?" he asked House before House got a chance to tease him again.

House flashed the cover, rife with brooding Fabio types, at him.

"It's for my case."

"Really. Maybe next week, you'll get a Busty Asian Beauty."

"You're just jealous because no one writes stories about people with cancer. Chase brought these in, and the author followed. It's typical sci-fi crap but my patient just so happens to be written into it. I'm at his second death right now."

Wilson didn't appear to be listening to his explanation. "I think 'The Stone Angel' had cancer in it. Or was it 'The Robber Bride'?"

"Pfft. They're Canadian. Doesn't count."

"Don't knock the Canlit. It was the best way to stymie immigration while doing illegal work as an undergrad. After all, no one else bothers."

"Yeah, you wouldn't have wanted to get deported to America." House fake-shuddered. "The horror! The horror!"

"I always thought Ivan Denisovich had cancer," Wilson mused. "He wouldn't be allowed to get out of the gulag and live happily ever after."

Was that really what oncologists did in their free time? He'd always suspected.

"We would need to consult a sexy librarian. And now that I have that image in my head, have you talked to Cuddy?"

Wilson shook his head. "I haven't seen her yet."

"Then you're in luck." House checked his watch. "She should be in the cafeteria right now."

"I thought she was busy today."

"Don't worry, I checked, no donor dinners. She should be right..." He pointed and held his hand out before they opened the doors. "... there." Wilson followed the direction of his finger, scowling when he realised that Cuddy was actually within its range. "So what are you going to say to her?"

"Now why would you bother asking that? You get so much fun out of trying to discover my thoughts before I think them."

"Good point." House clapped him on the back. "_Allez-y!_"

He slid into a secluded table in the corner, facing away from them, and pulled what looked like a tape player out of his pocket. The downstairs neighbour had known a surprising amount about bugs considering he always complained that everyone was too loud.

"Hey," he heard Wilson begin awkwardly. "Can I sit here?"

"Strange," Cuddy replied. "I'm not seeing the strings, but I know House is pulling them somewhere."

"Nope, I'm a real boy. He told me about the case; can you blame a friend for being worried?"

A pause. "Do you still observe the Shabbat?"

"I try, but House has been staying with me lately."

Cuddy laughed. "Say no more. I was hoping to have someone to celebrate it with on Friday night. You interested?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." This wasn't how things were supposed to go. If they'd set the mission up properly, House would be muttering, _"Abort! Abort!"_ right now into the presumed 2-way they'd be using. "That sounds good, actually." Get back to business, Wilson.

"Great." A pause. House pictured them beaming at each other. "I've had sort of an... awakening lately. I'm even looking forward to synagogue this week." Blah blah blah, they'd better not spend Wilson's interrogation time talking about God.

"Glad to hear it." Wilson sighed then got back on track. "You're putting yourself at a lot of risk with this case, Lisa. What made you take it on? I know you wouldn't have if you didn't think it was the right thing to do."

"You really want to know?" Jackpot. He clenched the book, wrinkling its pages. There were precious few, if any, answers that would both appease him and be palatable.

"I want to know that you'll be okay." Stupid Wilson never pushed hard enough. Cuddy had just given him an opening and he'd ignored it, going for the 'caring' approach instead.

Except it seemed to work, since Cuddy hesitated but then said, "If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell House."

Fortunately, that wouldn't be a problem thanks to his handy-dandy spy gear. He turned up the volume in anticipation of Cuddy's revelation.

"I promise." Wilson sounded so sincere that House didn't know whether to be annoyed at his traitorous nature or pleased by his silver-tongued lie.

"Okay." There was a rustle of cloth and then a soft hissing. House turned the volume up all the way and jammed the headphones into his ears as hard as he could, but nothing distinct came through. He slammed his fist on the long-suffering book in frustration.

"Wow," said Wilson, who had clearly heard Cuddy's five minutes of whispering. "That's amazing. Are you sure that's who he was?" Who, the patient? He hadn't thought Cuddy had known about him until he'd brought the information to her knowledge.

"I'll show you the proof when you come over." Maybe he could finangle an invite.

"But - so - really?"

"You think I would've done any of the things I've done lately if it hadn't been? I even did a tox screen when I came into the hospital." He'd need to check the results. "He knew so much, and it all happened like he said it would." Crap. It was blackmail, then? "Plus the disappearing act."

"If this is really what you say it is, I see why you don't want House knowing." Worry shot through House. Chumminess with Cuddy was one thing, and something they could use, at that, but Wilson no longer sounded like he was on House's side, but hers.

"Yeah, and I wouldn't have told you if I didn't think you would feel the same way about keeping it from it."

So now he had to find out - through underhanded means - that everyone dosing him with lies was because of the way the patient had forced himself into their lives? Turning him in would be sweet revenge.

"No arguments here." Ha! Just wait til he got back.

Cuddy laughed, a little helplessly. "You're giving me that look."

"There's a look?" House snorted. There were at least twenty.

"The one you give House." A sigh. "I _knew_ this was a mistake! I shouldn't have told you. James, I'm sorry, just ignore what I'm saying."

"No, I don't want to do that. You believe this, and it's important to you. Heck, I should probably feel the same way you do about it. Yeah, I'll need to see the proof you were talking about. But until then, I should try and give you the benefit of the doubt. So what was he like?" Wilson was good at pep talks. House didn't believe a word he was saying right now.

"I don't really know if I can describe... I guess I'd say wise. Wise and weary." Cuddy must be smiling; House heard the happiness that crept in her voice. He'd be able to tell better when he listened to the recording later. "Then, of course, there was the power."

"Do you think he's here? Now?"

"I don't know. I'll tell you if I see him."

"It would help. Again, I'm not going to pretend that I'm completely with you on this yet. I'd like to be, it's just-" So it was an issue of something that House wouldn't believe, if the more-credulous Wilson couldn't trust it. He felt somewhat relieved. At least he knew why they were hiding it, although it wouldn't stop him from finding out.

"If it was the other way around, I'd be having trouble too."

"You're sure, then."

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

"Well, I usually think you know what you're doing." Haha, Wilson hedging. That man really didn't know how to say no.

"Oh, I feel so much better being able to share!" Cuddy exhaled. "It's a good thing you're in oncology."

Wilson laughed. "More likely to believe this kind of thing happening?"

"Exactly. You're a good friend, James." Yes, he was, but less so to House than Cuddy right now. It was all House could do to fling himself around the corner and intervene, try to get the answers that they weren't giving him.

"What do you want me to tell House?" They weren't going to be giving him those answers.

"Oh, House." Cuddy sighed, and he wanted to rise up in his defense - he was doing this for her, dammit. This was no fight over which brand of coffee the hospital stocked. "It always comes back to him, doesn't it?" He preened. It had better. "Not the truth. Tell him whatever you think he'll accept best. You'll be better at it than I will. I told him I'd be fine."

"If that's what you want." No! Traitor! That wasn't what _he_ wanted. "Oh, you've got a loose hair... all right, I've got it."

"Thanks. I've got to get back to work. Friday?"

"See you then."

House put away his listening device and flipped open _In My Time of Dying_ again. He tried to absorb and place the information the conversation had conveyed. It seemed like some authority figure they didn't think he would accept as such had come and blackmailed Cuddy, and now she was taking refuge in faith, possibly trying to use Wilson as a witness to whatever dastardly 'proof' they had inflicted.

He craned around his seat as Wilson approached, ready to test him. His eyes narrowed. Sitting over by the window were his patient's brother, along with the pale little author and an unsmiling older man who had been hanging around his room.

He'd keep an eye on them, but first things first: "What did she say?"

Wilson held out something in his hand. "Got something to put this in? Run a tox screen."

House faked a sympathetic wince. "That bad, huh? Don't worry, you can tell me. That's why we were doing this, anyway. Didn't believe her story?" Laying it on to increase the guilt. He pulled an empty pill case out of his pocket and put Cuddy's hair in it.

"Oh, her story wasn't that strange. An old rabbi of hers who helped a family member through detox came and vouched for the patient," lied Wilson the lying liar. "Guess she really trusted him."

"Enough to not get murdered in her sleep by the family if we don't cure him or something goes wrong? How did some old guy in a hat guarantee that she'd be all right, huh?"

Wilson frowned. "The way she described it," he said slowly, "it seemed like he had some... backup with him. Enough to convince her she'd be safe, anyway."

House's eyes wandered across the tables. "Guess I'll just have to make sure they won't want to strike out against her." He pointed towards the window. "There's the patient's ragtag band of misfits right now. The giraffe is his brother, the squirrel is the author of this masterfully trashy series-"

"Sounds like your kind of literature."

"Yes, though you're just sore I hate your Eskimo friends. And the fuzzy peach is... in a wheelchair apparently." House peered closer. Wilson was saying something about animals versus fruit but he didn't bother with it.

House's conjecture was that Dean would be similarly incapacitated soon, at the rate his mysterious disease seemed to be progressing. Had that man suffered from the same disease? Was paralysis the endpoint, ultimately?

"And the gibbon," he added, "is the friend that the brother referred us to for a reading on the patient's mental state." Had he been there before? House had only just noticed him.

Sam and the friend got up and headed past them. House's eyes followed them.

"House! You cannot disturb them while they're trying to eat! Give them a moment's peace!"

"Maybe that's how things work in cancer world, but out here things need to go a little faster. No time to be polite."

"Since when have you-"

"No time, here they come."

The friend - Trenchcoat Man was the most comprehensive way to describe him, really - was carrying a full bowl of soup, which dribbled out and onto his hands intermittently. A plume of steam rose from the bowl; the soup must've been hot, yet Trenchcoat didn't flinch or wince at all.

House's eyes widened. It couldn't be simple numbness or paralysis, since the man's hands were functioning normally. Could be congenital pain insensitivity.

He held out his cane to trip the man as he passed, but there was a fluttering, and the man righted himself with not a drop of soup spilled for once. He looked at House and waited, not bothering with any greetings or introduction.

"Heard that you were the one to ask about Dean's mental state," said House. "How long has he been crazy, and how long has everyone been going along with it?"

"Dean's not crazy."

"Oh, come on. He has a new story every time we turn around and made up most of his injuries. You're telling me those are the acts of a sane man?"

"I'm afraid I can't help you," the man said coolly. House was intrigued by his seeming lack of concern.

"Your silence isn't going to help him, but if you don't want him to get better, a bribe would be way more efficient."

The man drew himself up and actually loomed, ready to throttle him with his eyes alone. Not so unconcerned after all, perhaps.

"Dean asked me not to answer questions," he ground out finally.

"Great! You do whatever Dean tells you to, huh? Just following orders?"

Death by Stare intensified. It was impressive enough to give him a headache.

"I'm taking Dean's advice. You should take mine and get back to your medicine, doctor." It was said calmly and evenly but there was a threat in there, somewhere; House just didn't know how to place it.

He forfeited on the staring competition and caught the younger Winchester heading towards them.

The insensitivity to pain could still be a symptom. He grabbed the fork from Wilson's lunch and dug it into the brother's side.

Nope, normal reaction. They were definitely covering for Dean, though. Wilson sputtered in the background as House made his next move.

"What do you know about demons?" He held up his book.

The brother pinched his lips together, prissily disapproving. "Don't tell me you're buying into those stupid books."

"You know abou-" Trenchcoat Man began. The brother lifted a massive hand and pushed him forward a few steps. The bowl tipped again. House watched in fascination as dribbles landed on Trenchcoat's hands without him even flinching.

"Gotta love caf soup," he said, sticking a finger in it (and, naturally, ignoring Wilson's horrified "House!"). He had to deprive himself of sampling it, wiping his finger off on his blazer, because it would've burnt his tongue.

"We're going to go eat," said the brother. "I think you have my number if you need to talk to me, Dr. House. Bye for now." He hustled Trenchcoat Man away.

"And here they told Chase he was a friend," said House.

"What, you think he's not? I thought he'd been visiting regularly."

"You're not in the right mindset; I've been reading piles of books seeped in homoerotic subtext all day."

"Personally, I'm waiting for Lord of the Rings to come out on Bluray before I read it."

"Sounds like a fun week." House gestured to the other side of the room. "He's definitely the boyfriend. No way a friend is that attuned to what the patient wants, or as protective."

"Okay, one more lie figured out, then. I hate when I miss my cues; should I be clapping?"

"Ooh, I'd like that."

"I don't know about you," said Wilson, "but I'm going to have something to eat already."

"Thought you'd never ask." Finding out what the conversation with Cuddy had really been about could wait; Wilson had good food today.

Wilson snatched back his fork.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Foreman knew he wasn't _quite_ up to House's level of case-cracking, but he did like to assemble the facts, if not a wacky metaphor to go with. He had time; his boss was fondling that giant baseball or whatever it was and harassing his former coworker over the phone right now. Faxes were being stuffed through the machine as fast as Cameron, putting the "her" in "paper-pusher" as House would say, could assemble the documents.

First and Foremost Fact: Cuddy had personally assigned Dean to them, making him a Very Important Patient. Those were crucial to spot.

Fact: Dean had almost none of the injuries he claimed to have in the medical records, and none from the ghost books (most notably, the deaths) - but his brother, Sam, was consistent with the information they had, while professing ignorance of his brother's status. Therefore, Dean was lying.

Fact: Dean and Sam both had Shit Going Down in their bloodstream, and separate Shit at that, although Sam was perfectly healthy. Foreman better not catch anything on this case, or else House would start using the phrase "stick a bitch" again. And that was just heinous misappropriation of a phrase that shouldn't even exist.

Fact: Dean was actually sick, despite being a mentally-troubled liar who, unfortunately, was buying into what he was selling... and Foreman kind of wished he wasn't any of those things. He didn't quite know why. He supposed he found it intriguing how those brothers stuck together, keeping each other out of trouble, wallowing in poverty together rather than one sinking below and one forced to break free to rise above. Stupid of them, yes, but they didn't seem to have too bad a time doing it.

Preliminary conclusion: House's talk-show techniques were not going to work with this case. Theirs and the nurses' (buying them weekly donuts was _so_ worth it) observation from outside the patient's room would have to provide any personal insight necessary. It was up to the medicine from here on out, and it would have to fight against a virus like nothing they'd ever seen before.

Foreman didn't always see as much opportunity for medicine as for advancement in a Cuddy case, but this one was definitely a contender. Could make a good paper.

Honing his leadership skills, Foreman considered how their specialties could contribute towards the diagnosis. It never really came to much; House would do whatever he wanted, anyway. He just liked to keep the processes sharp, dreaming of those halcyon days when he'd had a team of his own and hoping for them to come again.

Given the high number of dead red blood cells in Sam's blood, House's expertise in nephrology would prove useful. He hoped they wouldn't have to exhume anyone, given the messy deaths of the patient's family members. Cameron - immunology? right? - could focus on the virus. Chase - well, Chase was in diagnostics, and good at what he did, when he wasn't getting drunk over marital flare-ups. Poor beleaguered Taub, who probably just wanted to perk up a few nipples, could puzzle out the bones, pending House pushing him into performing a consult.

To him fell the unenviable job of trying to get in the patient's head, track any sudden changes in personality. House had reported that the friend-slash-boyfriend had rebuffed efforts to interrogate him (not that Foreman could blame him). The man in question, Comic Book Guy, had his head stuck in the clouds anyway, so they could discount him as a reliable source. Same went for the ghostly author. Chase hadn't found Sam forthcoming, either. There was one more visitor who they hadn't spoken to, but he was in House's parking spot, so that opportunity was already brewing.

Instead of trying to get into Dean's head, Foreman tried to place himself in Dean's shoes. Easier said than done. The stories they'd told had been pretty erratic, though his gut was telling him that they were true in spirit if not in letter, the way Dean reminded him so strongly of his former peers.

The younger brother had been the one to receive his sympathy, stuck with a quixotic older brother planning on failing upwards at life, stuck in a lifestyle (the supposed boxing circuit) that stifled his opportunities until he managed to break free, if only for a while.

When Dean mentioned working harder to help his brother's studies, the nostalgic pull of that was hard to resist. He'd thought of his and Marcus' childhood selves, before the drugs, how they would look out for each other. Before Marcus had drained his fledgling college fund to get into a drug-dealing racket.

But the... Doe... brothers might still be more like the present-day Foreman brothers (lack of corporal punishment in the Foreman household aside) than he'd assumed.

They'd been circling around a big secret that they were afraid to let the doctors in on, but it was pretty obvious their dad had beat them some, the younger one more so. Something they'd gotten used to covering up as kids and kept on going with now because really, no one _wants_ to go to a shrink. It happened, and now the father was dead, the kids were grown up, life went on. The older one probably made up his records as a way of stigmatising himself, trying to take on that burden that the younger had borne.

Well, _he_ was in a grim mood today. This damn case, this stupid reminiscing. When had that ever made for good times?

What really made him angry, got him to draw the connection between the two families: what kind of older brother would let the younger one suffer through all that, alone? Place the burden on him? He ground his teeth.

He didn't want to jump to conclusions, had thought he saw something in Dean, other than his colon, but he didn't know what to think right now. Nothing was matching up. Only a few cases over the (sadly) many years that he'd been with House had utterly overwhelmed him. He could tell that this would be one of them.

"Right, Foreman?" he heard his boss squawk, and he nodded on instinct. It would probably come back to bite him on the ass. Oh well, maybe he could implement his strategy for delegation while House was busy on the phone. It was kind of a waste that they barely ever got to play to their specialties. There were days in which he never even thought about brains now, and that bothered him. Neurology deserved more of a place in the annals of medical mysteries. So began his speech for the department's next meeting, anyway. He liked to keep his foot in the door.

Foreman took a deep breath and took his leap. "Debating over the discrepancy in the records isn't going to help the patient right now. We need to assume that the only truth we're getting from him is what we extract from him physically. I say no more looking at them anymore."

"You know House," said Cameron. "To him, it's a symptom."

"He can think about it all he wants. I just don't feel like dwelling on it is going to help us figure it out."

"Gonna have to agree with you on that on," Chase said. "We can't trust what the patient is telling us at this point. I thought the books might provide a few hints, but they're just making things worse. I think the patients may think they _are_ those characters."

Foreman snorted. "You and those books again. What do they say about our latest blood sample, huh?"

"That... uh... Sam has demon blood in him." Chase raised his hands and laughed. "Don't shoot the messenger."

Cameron sunk her head in her hands. "If I don't hear the word 'demon' again for a year, it'll be too soon."

"Maybe all those dead blood cells in Sam mean something else. The books were written by their friend, maybe they're all in some sort of cult together that believes in this sort of stuff. Part of that vampire thing going on."

"You think Sam reads too much _Twilight_? I got a clinic case like that the other day." Cameron shuddered.

"Huh?" asked Foreman. This was unfamiliar territory for him.

"It's okay," Chase interceded quickly. "Really, you don't want to know."

But Cameron was making one of those appalled faces of hers and spent the next ten minutes enlightening him about the precious world of sparkly vampires and the barely less palatable world of blood drinkers.

Chase had been right. He _really_ didn't want to know. He tried picturing the logistics of vampire surgery instead. Diamond-coated blades?

"AND," House shouted, grabbing all their attention (as was his intention, Foreman was sure), "if _that_ isn't weird enough for you, I think he's a serial killer!" He smiled widely at his team. "Great. See ya."

"You actually convinced him to come in?" asked Foreman. "Wait - now you think Dean's a murderer? Even for you, that's a bit much."

"Hey, look at Ted Bundy."

"So because our patient stole your cane," said Cameron, "he's a serial killer?"

"Well, you know who would steal my cane? A serial killer."

"No," said Foreman, trying to end the ludicrous conversation quickly, "they'd just beat you with it."

"Aaaaaand Foreman proves that you can take the man out of the Big House, but you can't take the Big House out of the man."

Of course, that was when Cuddy popped in. "Something you're not telling us, House?"

Foreman shuddered as he realised how she'd heard it. He could swear he had a Cameron expression on his face right now. "Thanks. Now I feel violated."

"That's just the kind of boss I am," said House, turning his attention to Cuddy, "and the kind of boss I'm hoping you're about to be."

"I wanted to speak with you," Cuddy said, not explaining further. They went into House's office. Foreman and his colleagues took a moment to stare at them through the glass before continuing.

"So who went to check in on the patient last?" asked Chase.

"That would be me," said Cameron.

"You went in to check on the patient? You never told me." Chase acted like such a girl sometimes. _He's good at his job_, Foreman chanted to himself. _I am trying to be professional._ His life required a lot of motivational chants.

"We have the same job! It's not like you missed anything."

This was exactly why he'd needed to fire Thirteen.

"The blood?" Foreman reminded them.

"It's weird," said Chase, "doesn't react like regular dead blood cells. I wanted to do a few more tests on it, but it didn't take. I sent it to a few different contacts to analyse."

"They do know how soon we need it, right?" Cameron asked. "Patient's temperature's been rising, his white blood cell count is going down, he's jaundiced, and there's blood in his urine."

"The usual decline, for us." Chase stood up. "I'll add it to the list of symptoms." Chase always got to be the one to write on the board.

Cameron studied Sam's test results again. "I think there's some sort of Satanic cult activity going on here, the kind that has weird rituals with animals and dead things."

"That's where the virus might've come from?" asked Foreman.

"Cross-species transfer could explain why we haven't seen it before."

Chase's face tightened. "We could be looking at the next H1N1 on our hands."

"We don't even know how it would spread." Cameron looked alarmed. "We need to get ourselves tested."

Thinking aloud, Foreman said, "Onset of the disease has been pretty rapid. None of us, or his visitors for that matter, are exhibiting that kind of bruising, for a start. Doesn't seem like it's airborne or contact-based."

"Actually," said Chase, "Sam did have some bruising when I examined him. Bloodwork turned out completely different, though."

"So not only are their samples wildly different from anything we've seen before, they also differ from each other? Great."

"We should keep Sam overnight for observation, keep an eye on the bruising. If it gets worse, then we'll have to move them into quarantine. I don't think there's cult activity, though. He didn't seem interested in what the others were into."

"Could be cancer. The liver or bone marrow being affected would keep the dead blood cells from being filtered out."

"We'd need to do even more biopsies," said Cameron. "If the brother is up for it, I'd say we get those today. We need to get House's opinion on quarantining, too."

They stared over to the office again, where Cuddy was turning to say her goodbye.

The team rose, but something in House's frozen demeanour had them looking uncertainly amongst themselves. When they did make their way over, House stumped off quickly, not sparing a glance for the conference room.

"Should we follow?" asked Foreman. Their boss didn't look like he was in the most approachable of moods.

"Possible epidemic versus angry House... what do you think, Cameron?" Chase asked.

"I think I should go talk to House," she said. "If I can find him."

"How far can he really get?"

* * *

Cuddy had come by awfully soon after her conversation with Wilson. House waited for her to start the conversation, looked at her. She still had that glow, the one similar to the one when she'd first mommed up.

"Had a talk with Wilson today," she said.

"Really?" asked House, all wonder and surprise.

She smirked. "I take it you set up our little lunch date?"

"Oh, sure. But he said 'rabbi', I tuned out."

Her smirk grew. Wilson had definitely been covering for her. "Your loss, I guess."

Time to get the truth. He'd thought about whom it could've been, going over the visitors to the patient's room; it was most likely to have been one of them. The only one who seemed like he would have the pull, as unbelievable as it was that Cuddy would buy into it, was the author.

"Have you heard of these?" He held up a few of Chase's books.

"No, why would-"

"We can skip the lying part this time," he said wearily.

Cuddy crossed her arms. "Go ahead. Get whatever you have to say out of your system."

"Carver Edlund - he's the one who came to you, isn't he? You believed his stories, he sold you on his bullshit being real and that's why you agreed to take care of his friends, the 'characters', because hey, if they're chasing ghosts they're not murderers after all!"

Worry creasing her forehead, she moved closer. "Are you all right? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Why you took this damn case in the first place!"

"What do you want me to say, an angel came to me in a dream?"

"_That's_ the best you could come up with? Jeez, your Jewish is really showing right now." Cuddy's renewed faith was going to be annoying, he could tell, at least until she got over it again. She'd used it to distract Wilson; House wouldn't let it distract him.

She took a deep shaky breath. "I told you at the beginning of the case not to push for information. I'm not talking to you about this again."

"Did you sleep with one of them?" Please say no.

It took a long time for Cuddy to answer, her face changing several times before she did. The longer she took, the more House's apprehension swelled, his mood plummeting.

"Yes. Okay? No big mystery after all." She forced a smile.

There was a reason House usually expected the worse: it usually came true. He faced his window and let the sound of her shoes clicking further and further away wash over him before holding her attention one more time.

"You always did have a thing for bad boys. Which one was it?" He didn't really want to know, but he couldn't not. Now that she'd come this far, he didn't foresee her not divulging further, twisting that knife.

She didn't rise to his bait. "House... I'm sorry I can't tell you."

He listened to make sure she was gone before he turned back towards the room again. Her footsteps still echoed down the hallway. Cuddy could tap the hell out of a pair of heels.

Well, he knew. It shouldn't have surprised him. What to do now?

His first idea was to go to the patient's room, find some sort of way to twist one of _his_ knives, now that he knew he had them. The books couldn't have gotten everything wrong - hadn't, in fact, though they'd turned every crime into propaganda, "saving lives one town at a time".

He drifted out of the office, not even sure of what direction he took in the hallway. The faces of the people he passed were blurs until a voice made him turn his head to find Wilson at his side. What his friend was saying, he didn't know.

"What did Cuddy whisper to you, when you were talking?"

His friend stopped walking. "I thought you weren't watching. House?"

"I heard the rest of it, but not that. I need... I need to know more. What was she saying?"

"How did you hear us?" Wilson asked, voice firm and in crescendo.

"Didn't think you'd mind if I listened in."

"_House_," said Wilson warningly, teeth set on edge.

House sighed, pulling the tangle of wires and plastic out of his blazer pocket. He hadn't intended for Wilson to know this much. Wilson's hands immediately flew to his torso, clapping himself over to try to find the corresponding bug.

"Where is it!" he shouted. House gestured lethargically towards his chest pocket, which Wilson practically ripped the contents out of, throwing them to the side. Wilson pushed up his sleeves, hands fisting. "This is a new low for you, House. It was supposed to be a private conversation."

House huffed. "A private conversation you were going to report to me right after, maybe. I just saved you the trouble."

Wilson's mouth got tight, almost losing all its colour, as he took a deep breath.

"I don't _report_ to you, House!" he hissed, lunging towards him. "And I was never going to! I didn't plan on telling you, still don't."

"Cuddy did."

Fists loosening, Wilson stood back. "Then why did you come to me?" he asked, voice roughened by suspicion. "Just another of your tests?"

"She wouldn't tell me _who_." House was curious to see if Wilson would play innocent, pretend not to know what he was talking about. His efforts were vindicated when his friend pressed on.

"But you believed her."

House shrugged. "Why would she admit it if it wasn't the truth?"

"Maybe to get you off her back already?"

Oh ye of little faith. "You really think it's the kind of thing that would stop me?"

Head turned to the side, Wilson was giving him what Cuddy would've recognised as 'that House look'.

"Yeah, I do," he finally said. "You know what, though? She didn't tell me either-"

"But she said she would," House interrupted.

"Yeah, she did." A sour smile twisted Wilson's mouth. "And if she does, I'm not telling you. Think about that next time you want to listen in on me - and think about it in your own apartment. I don't _want_ you hearing me when I'm not talking to you."

Scooping up the contents of his pocket from the floor, he rushed away, and House cursed himself in five different languages. If Wilson had known, or at least been willing to tell him, it would've been one thing to have let slip the matter of the bug. Instead, he had just lost all of it, for nothing.

He rested his head against the wall and exhaled slowly. It was definitely time to go home. 221B it would have to be.

Turned out there was no rest for the wicked. As the rain hit him, he remembered how much further away he'd had to park today. The culprit of that dire offense was just rolling up to _his_ spot, though. House recognised the grizzled, becapped man as he came closer.

Of course _this_ would turn out to be the patient's fault too.

"_That's_ who's been taking my spot! Leaving yet?"

"Yeah, Dean's gettin' his beauty rest, Lord knows he needs it, so time for me to set myself up for the night."

"Just as well, I told the black doc to pop a cap in the ass of anyone who didn't leave." The man opened his mouth to deliver what looked like it would be a tirade. House distracted him the best way the smell of motor oil in the air divulged. "Pretty sweet ride you got there."

'67 Impala, according to the police. How they'd made it past the cops showboating that thing around was beyond him. One day, it would probably end up in a museum next to Lizzie Borden's axe.

"This is Dean's. Drove it up for him once I fixed the controls for me."

House could possibly sympathise, though not in his current mood. Stupid driving on the right screwed up all the pedals for him.

"Kind of a recognisable car, isn't it?" he asked. The man either didn't realise the allusion to the boys' criminal trouble - which House doubted, given the sharpness of those dark eyes - or was yet another conspirator. House would need to look him up too, once he got his name.

"Been in the family a long time." The patient _would_ be too stubborn to switch.

"Greg House."

"I know who you are," groused the man, sneering slightly. House felt a stirring of admiration for how hard to please the man was. He'd clearly missed his true calling, should've been a nurse.

"And you?"

"Bobby Singer." Bobby didn't offer a hand to shake. Then again, neither had he.

"How did you end up in that wheelchair, anyway?"

"Accident. Tripped and ended up with a knife in me." Despite describing what must've been one of the worst experiences of his life, Bobby's face brightened a bit. "There a reason you wanted to know?"

"I thought it might relate to the case."

Bobby's face fell a little at that, but he rolled closer. "Listen, doctor, is there even the slightest chance you can help me make it out of this damn chair?"

"What'd the other doctors say, that you severed the nerves?"

Bobby nodded, eyes vaguely moist.

"Sorry, no can do."

"You're supposed to be able to fix the cases that no one else can!"

House shrugged. "Look, even _I_ can't grow back dead nerves. If I could, I wouldn't be pissed at you for taking this spot."

"At least you can still walk," the man muttered bitterly. House was sick of hearing that one. He could limp, sure, and that was supposed to make him happy?

"You think I got up from having a chunk of my leg cut out and started hopping around right away? You're going to have to get used to the fact that you're going to be stuck in that chair the rest of your life, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Just be glad you don't have to _feel_ it, too."

Bobby heaved himself and the chair in the car before responding, eyes on the steering wheel. "Boy, every time I try to forget and try to get up and walk, I feel it."

_Boy?_ House thought, and he opened his mouth to repeat it, but Bobby had slammed the door and took off with a screech of rubber.

Moody! Probably going off to play eenie, meenie, miney, mo with a bottle and a shotgun. Then he remembered that he himself didn't even _have_ anywhere to go off to at the moment.

He went back into the hospital. So the patient was sleeping, was he?

No rest for the wicked.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Someone was droning in the distance. Dean's nose twitched as he woke, filled with the scent of pissed-on flowers. Whatever his head was resting on was cold and heavy on his shoulder; he jerked it upwards, but the weight stayed where it was.

"Winchester!"

His eyes fluttered, opening a millimetre more each time. As his view adjusted, he found himself staring into Dr. House's bright blue eyes. He shrugged again and caught a flash of brown hair in his peripheral vision. Sammy.

Right, that was why the kid had such girly hair, his freakishly cold ears. He'd forgotten that about his brother now that he wasn't forcing a ushanka on him every time they went outside in cold weather. That hat'd been a hoot and a half, though. He'd picked another one up for him last time they went through Colorado.

Jeez, the demons'd really stunk Sam up. He must've come here right after.

"You always this slow?" Doc House swung forward, shone one of those annoying lights in his eyes.

Dean blinked, trying to focus on the doctor. "Whut," he grunted.

"Patients," said House. "Take away their coffee and they just fall apart." He pointed at Sam. "Has he been screwing around with dead people?"

Now Dean was awake. "The hell, man! Course not!" Freaking Ruby. Somehow this was all her fault, Dean just knew it.

"I read a few of those books. You, you don't look like the type to believe in ghosts. But this guy, he looks as pliable as a piece of spaghetti. Don't tell me he wasn't experimenting in college."

"Sammy? Naw, my boy's totally vanilla." Dean didn't think he could run damage control on his own. He jostled Sam's heavy head again. "Up & at 'em, sunshine."

"Bwaguh," murmured Sam. Was he ever out of it. Those demons must've been more work than he let on. Dean was glad that he'd wheedled Cas into helping out the Samsel in distress next time 'round.

Resorting to childhood ways, Dean reached around and prodded the side of his neck. Sam shot up, mouth gaping like a fish, before he pinched his face together into disapproving bitchiness. Dean busied himself with dog-earing his place in _Paradise Lost_ (no wonder he'd dozed off), the picture of innocence.

"Dean, what the h- oh hi, Dr. House." Sam flashed the doctor a dimpled smile. Dean had a feeling it wouldn't fly with Dr. House.

"Your blood is as dead inside as he's supposed to be outside," was Dr. House's greeting. "Well, almost."

To his credit, Sam played confused, swallowing nervously. "Um... what? Am I sick too?"

"Maybe. Who knows, you could be our next case."

"You're freaking me out here, Dr. House. Is there something wrong with me?"

"Oh, definitely. You see, Little John, your veins are full of something pretending to be blood. Yet here you are, healthy as a horse." The doctor himself didn't look too healthy, rubbing his leg with a pained look on his face. "Sell yourself to a pharmaceutical company and all your money problems will be over."

Sam's forehead creased. "There's something wrong with my blood? Am I okay? How did that happen?"

_Don't push it, Sammy_. Pinching his brother - getting that little jump and scowl out of him was just _too_ easy - Dean worked out in his head if they could use the Three Mile Island meltdown as an excuse. No such luck. Was there anything else they could use, or would it be better not to say anything? He decided to watch things unfold.

"I don't know," said the doctor. "I was hoping you would have some answers for me. Swim in any nuclear waste recently? Molest any dead bodies?"

"Nope, sorry," said Sam.

"Really?" Dr. House pulled something out of his pocket. "So all that grave desecration, that was just-"

"Me," Dean interrupted. "He didn't have anything to do with this. You leave him out of it."

"You dug up all those graves on your own?"

He shrugged. "Someone had to do it."

"Gotta love that can-do spirit! Papa Winch would be so proud," said the doctor with a manic light in his eyes, as if he knew the truth was the opposite. "So where is he?"

Sam narrowed his eyes. "Why do you ask?"

"Just want to bring him in, run some tests."

"Our dad's _dead_," Dean emphasized. "We told the docs when I was being admitted. You okay, doctor? You seem a little out of it."

Dr. House glared. "Oh, _you're_ one to talk. I'm peachy. I know your dad's a doornail; I want to dig him up." He pointed accusingly at Dean. "No need for you to volunteer for this one, my team also has experience in that field."

Dean was about to defend his proclivities when the doctor's words caught his attention. "Really? Group of fancy doctors heading out to the cemetery with shovels?"

Doc House waved a hand. "It's been done. Being able to sample Aunt Mildred comes in handy sometimes."

Dean had never realised that keeping the body around could ever save someone just as much as burning it. Huh. The more you know.

"Sorry," said Sam, "our dad's cremated."

Dr. House slapped his good leg. "Aw, shucks. You guys keep destroying our chances for a good hoedown! Well, back to investigating the little freaks in you." He headed out but popped his head back in. "Oh yeah," he said to Sam, "if this one pops his clogs, don't leave town. We'll get you next. And your little dog, too." He fake-laughed his way out of the room. "Mweeheeheehee!"

The brothers stared at where he had been long after he'd ceased being there. "And people think _we're_ crazy," said Dean.

"Dude, you just admitted to playing musical chairs in cemeteries. Not leaving the best of impressions there."

"Oh, did you want to be the one explaining demon blood to them? You go right ahead, Sammy, be my guest."

"I don't know, Dean." Sam leaned in, lowering his voice. "Maybe - maybe we _should_ try to tell them the truth. They're going around in circles right now."

"Okay," said Dean, feigning chipperness, "how about this? Over my dead body."

"That's exactly the problem!"

"We wouldn't have gotten into this mess if you hadn't been set on telling them what our lives are really like. Travelling salesmen would've been fine as an excuse. Cops maybe."

"Well, what's _your _idea then?" asked Sam, sounding his very snottiest. Hey, Dean had come up with some damn fine plans in his day.

"We tell 'em I'm crazy, always have been." He lifted a hand to ward off Sam's sputtering objections. "What chance do we have that they'll accept the truth? At least this way, they'll listen to _you_. I can tell them everything at that point, they just won't believe me. Best of both worlds."

"I don't like it."

Dean sighed. Sam was going to be difficult. "What, and I do?"

"How do we know they'll even believe me?"

"C'mon, you're Stanford boy - do you even _have_ a record? - course they'll go with your version over mine. Just gotta sell it."

Sam scrutinized him warily. "What do you want me to say, Dean?" Guarded look or not, at least he was cooperating. Dean tried to remember his last encounter with shrinks.

"When we were in the loony bin, the doc said I was a 'paranoid schizophrenic with a narcissistic personality disorder and religious psychosis,' how about that?"

"That doctor didn't even exist!" Sam crossed his arms.

"Yeah well, if I can't get a good diagnosis from being crazy, where am I supposed to get it, Sam?" He raised his eyebrows and smirked at his bro. Before Sam could sink into a sulk, Dean pressed his call button. "On their way now, better come up with something." He beamed cheekily.

Sam shook his shaggy head. "Dean, I don't want to do this."

Dean's eyes hardened. "Yeah, well, maybe you'll remember that the next time you feel like simultaneously passing as a sane person and sharing with hospital staff."

"Why do you have to be so difficult about this?" Sam burst out.

Dean burst into a laugh. "Me?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He'd better rein it in. Sammy's tone was at Orange Alert levels.

"Trying to get them to believe anything about our real lives was too difficult was all, okay?" Dean said to placate Sam. "Should've seen the way these assholes looked at me. We can try it whenever _you_ get sick, just get us to a female doc and I'll get her to believe us." He winked.

"Don't do this," Sam pleaded. "Things are serious. I'm worried for you."

"I'll be fine." Dean bumped his shoulder against Sam's. "I've made it back this many times, haven't I? Let's just get the doctors off our case for now. Less time they spend nosing around, the more they can treat me."

Still looking unconvinced, Sam nodded.

"Hey," said Dean, "look at me." He held Sam's gaze. "We'll get through this, we will, and then we're kicking Lucifer's ass, you hear me?" The doubt creasing Sam's face eased a little. "This many people trying to solve it, we'll probably cure cancer along the way. Don't worry about me."

Sam smiled reluctantly. "Okay. How are you feeling now?"

Looking at Sam through his lashes, Dean clasped his hands together. "Well," he said in a falsetto, "there's this jock who wants me to go to the prom with him, but I don't wanna give it up yet, Sammy!"

"Haha. No, really."

Dean took inventory of his aches.

He knew all too well what it took to snap your vocal cords from screaming, and he mistrusted pain that wasn't a crack or pierce or rip or blow. Right now was like a little man had played drums on his insides. Not even directly, just the aftereffects, nowhere comparable to the rat Alastair had slipped to his gut as way of introduction. He was aware of the worst of corporeality; when it came to displays of the flesh and viscera, even Martha Stewart wouldn't out-Martha his creations once she got where she was going.

The fact that he didn't really know what was happening to him was a little alarming. Okay, a lot.

If this, _this_ was the death of him, he'd be a little freaking disappointed. There'd been a time when a heart attack had been good enough. These days, he expected something more spectacular, with the weirdo celestial tug-of-war he was stuck in and all.

"I'm not too bad," he told Sam. "You, on the other hand, you have anyone check you over after your hunt? 'Cause you don't smell like it, I gotta say." It was uncharacteristic of Sam to be so - well, for him, sloppy. If he came back in and started bleeding all over the place, Dean was going to kill him for his carelessness.

Before he could answer, Doctor Chase came to the door, panting a little. "I got a page?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Sam, looking back and forth between Dean and the doctor. "I had something I wanted to say."

His head swiveled to Dean, not breaking eye contact as Doc Chase led him out of the room. Dean nodded at him, trying to school his face to be calm and encouraging. It wasn't exactly his trademark expression.

His posture slackened once Sam was gone; he drooped back against the pillows, taking a few long, rickety breaths.

Optimism was tiring.

Sure, the words he'd thrown at Sam hadn't been too different from the kind of thing he normally said in these situations. Putting force of will behind them, though, especially when he barely believed them himself...

He turned his head to the side, letting it rest on the pillow as he watched Sam talk with the doctor. When they turned to view him through the glass - a good sign that Sam was following up, at least - he waved pointedly and they moved out of sight, a little abashed.

He closed his eyes, about to doze off again when a chill breeze came through the room, accompanied by a rustling. Grumbling, he propped himself up a little to investigate, hand reaching for his knife, totally understanding Bobby's surliness now.

"Where were you?" he asked.

"Castiel."

"What, are you one of those Chinpokomon now? Seriously, where?"

Cas tilted his head. "Castiel, Switzerland. What's a Chinpokomon?"

"I dunno but they say their names a lot. It's some toy thing that came up with that Kenny case I told you about."

"Oh. Yes, Gabriel likes to play with his vessels."

"So why were you in, uh, Castiel?" Dean asked, unable to control the snicker that exploded out of him. It sounded so very dirty. So very anatomically impossible.

"If another angel wanted to leave a message for me, they would do so there."

Dean shook with laughter. "So you went to see if any other angels were in Castiel? Cas, you whore! You gotta start keeping better track."

"Dean! This is a serious matter, not to be sidetracked by penetration jokes!"

"Sorry," he sniggered.

The angel shook his head. "Behold the Righteous Man," he said glumly.

"Damn straight... unlike all those angels in Castiel!"

Cas stared at him fixedly until he stopped laughing. "Are you done?"

Dean gasped a little, trying to catch his breath. "Yeah, I think so. You're telling me you didn't find it even a little bit funny?"

"It occurred to me that you would find innuendo in it of the 'that's what she said' variety. I didn't realise you could possibly keep it up so long."

"That's what she said!" crowed Dean. Cas sighed and turned away from him. "I'm teaching you well, young padawan." He struggled to sit up straighter to discuss strategy better. "Why you getting in touch with the other angels, anyway? Isn't there a 'kill on sight' policy out on you?"

"So it turned out," Cas said, tossing him an angel sword whose origin seemed uncomfortably close to 'in Castiel', since Dean hadn't noticed it before. He tucked it under the mattress for now. "I didn't get to ask any of the questions I wanted."

"What, more stuff about God?"

Cas glanced at Sam, who had moved within eyesight again now that he seemed to be finishing the conversation with the doctor. "I need to establish contact to be able to ensure a certain thing."

"Pfft," said Dean. "Fine, be all vague then. Should've known I couldn't get a straight answer from you. It sounds like risky business trying to talk to the angels, though. They catch wind of any one of us and someone's gonna get hurt. Probably you, might I add. You sure it's worth risking it?"

Cas looked at him contemplatively. "Yes," he said, "I think it will be. I don't know much about coming up with my own plans, but it's the only thing I can think to do, now that I don't have the other voices in my head to give me counsel."

The doctor chose that moment to come in, a sniffly Sammy trailing him.

* * *

Chase stared at the brother.

"You're telling me Dean has been schizophrenic for years and you didn't think to mention it 'til now? Were you just waiting for us to suss it out on our own? Waste everyone's time?"

Everything had fallen into place once he knew Dean's mental history. The element of the supernatural transposed into the story of brothers on the road - why they were even together in the first place - must've come from his delusions, the injuries upon his brother probably due to psychotic breaks. There was probably a case that could be made that Dean was dangerous.

"He didn't want me to," mumbled Sam towards his shoes, hands stuffed in his pockets. "I only just managed to convince him to let me." For a big guy, he was doing a remarkable job of appearing undersized and awkward.

"I see." Chase checked to see if the patient was watching them and caught him at it. "Let's take this somewhere else," he suggested, leading Sam towards a waiting area with couches. They sat down and Sam shifted in his seat, avoiding eye contact. "Why isn't he being treated? With your lifestyle, therapy can't be easy, but there are some antipsychotics we could put him on, with your permission and the proper evaluation."

Allison had been set on talking with Sam and ensuring his brother wasn't causing him trouble. Now that Chase knew for sure that Dean was, he thought he'd save her (more like save Sam, really) the bother.

Sam shrugged helplessly. "Someone's always with Dean. It's not that big a problem."

"That big a problem? Sam, you left college and barely left his side since. If he didn't need care, you could go out on your own. Live your own life."

Sam gave him a tight smile. "That's okay, I'm good."

He tried again. "You're right that I don't have a brother, but I understand you wanting to look after him. It's just not fair to either of you if you're doing it without professional help. We can get him meds that you can take with you, there are facilities we can refer him to."

"Wait," said Sam, although he hadn't seemed to be listening. "You said with my permission? Wouldn't Dean get a say?"

"Well, if a psychiatrist found him of unsound mind, then his care would be transferred to your authority. You're already his medical proxy, right?"

"Yeah." Sam sat up straighter, sounding more eager. "Yeah. It's good to know that option. Dr. Chase, I appreciate you trying to help, but we have a system that works for us and we don't want to change it."

"Listen, I know all about systems like that - I used to have one of those, too." With his mum, back in the boozy day. "The thing about them is that, yeah, they work - right up until they don't. There's going to come a time when something goes wrong, and having other supports in place can make it easier to deal with."

That got Sam to finally look at him. "Maybe you're right. I don't want anything like that yet, though." He became pensive. "How is my brother, anyway? Whenever I ask him he says things aren't that bad, but just looking at him..." His eyes welled up.

"His health is declining," admitted Chase. "The last time we checked, his kidneys and liver were starting to fail. We'll have to put him on dialysis if it gets any worse. His lungs are sounding congested, as well. Unfortunately, we haven't made any headway in regards to his diagnosis yet. Still waiting on some results."

Sam had turned paler and paler as Chase recounted the facts. "What are his chances?" he choked out. Chase had to strain to hear him.

Chase shook his head. "If things continue the way they are, we'll have to put him on the transplant list."

"And then?" demanded Sam, firing off questions like bullets. "What about before that, or if that doesn't work? If things get worse? How long does he have?" He thrust himself off the couch and started pacing.

Chase needed a moment to steel himself to deliver the bad news. "A day at the most."

Sam stopped dead in his tracks.

"Oh my God," he whispered, trembling. He raised a hand to his face, wiping haphazardly. Chase had to look away. Didn't matter if the only family you had left was a hopeless case, it _hurt_ to see them go.

"I'm sorry," said Chase softly. "You should sit down."

"Yeah," Sam muttered, breathing erratic. "Yeah, okay." He sunk onto the couch and the last of his composure crumbled. "He's all I have left - the only family. Without him I'm just the last Winchester standing. I can't be the only one left, I _can't_. Without Dean, I don't know if I can manage to not..." He swayed, blinking.

"Careful - I got you." Chase reached out and gripped the other man's shoulders firmly. "Sam. Sam!" He gave Sam's arms a vigorous rub. "You have to get control of yourself," he said reluctantly. He hated to feed into the behaviour entrenched in Sam but he saw no other way. "Your brother needs you."

Nodding, Sam snapped to attention. It was almost eerie how quickly his face shifted from teary and vulnerable to cold and determined (if still a little wet-faced).

"You with me?" asked Chase, although Sam's expression was confirmation enough. "All right, now I can tell you the good news: you have Dr. House as your doctor."

"Um... that's the most comforting thing you got?"

Chase smiled reassuringly and stood, leading him back to the room. "The patients we get sometimes end up with severe problems before we diagnose the case – have to get worse before they get better. Dr. House has a pretty high success rate, even not considering what our department is."

Comprehension dawned on Sam. "So that's why you brought up treatment options with me. You really think he'll last long enough to make it to them, then?"

Chase had to backtrack a little. "The way things look right now, I can't say. It depends when we come up with a diagnosis."

"Dr. House didn't seem close to an answer when he came by earlier."

That was where House had gone? Cunning indeed; none of them would've thought to look in the patient's room.

"He gets 'Eureka!' moments through normal interactions," Chase tried to explain, although Sam didn't look very convinced. He put a hand to Sam's back and tried to guide him over. "Come on."

"...do now that I don't have the other voices in my head to give me counsel," he heard as he entered. It wasn't the patient saying it, as he had expected, but the boyfriend. Clearly not a case of opposites attracting.

"Just found out about your mental state," Chase said, but the patient had no attention to spare for him once he saw his brother. Chase rolled his eyes. What was he, a teapot? Wankers.

"Sam!" said the patient, concern evident in his tone. "You okay?"

Sam paused. "No," he said firmly. "No, I'm not, Dean, and neither are you. He said you might only have a day left to live."

Actually, he'd said _less than_. So, great, they neither looked at nor listened to him. He looked at the boyfriend, who was dressed much more innocuously than his words had suggested he would be. Chase supposed it took a special brand of crazy to dress the part.

"The doctors don't know me, do they? I'm going to make it through, Sam, I mean it. We'll fix this."

"Did you two meet in therapy?" Chase asked the boyfriend, not wanting to hear the patient and brother interact given what he knew about their dynamic.

The patient listened to _that_. "More like Hell," he said. Evidently, he was going to be trouble if it came to getting into a shrink's office or, if everyone involved was lucky, a mental hospital.

The boyfriend stood. "Sam, I was looking for you. We should prepare for our hunt."

Sam looked startled. "Already?" He shuffled closer to Dean, who waved him off.

"Go ahead, get it out of your system," Dean said, "and be careful." To the boyfriend, he instructed, "Keep him safe, huh?" although Chase would've expected those warnings to go the other way around.

"I'll come see you later," promised Sam.

"Yeah, you better!" Dean called after him.

Chase found himself flummoxed. He couldn't reconcile the caring, almost-hysterical sibling from the waiting area with the one in here about to march blithely off, taking the other loved one with him, for sport. Yet none of them seemed to find anything amiss about it.

Dean peered up at him. "They're hunting to find out who infected me with the virus."

"Just like the books, right? And why should I believe you?" Chase asked upon instinct before giving in. "Even if you were telling the truth, who would've infected you and how?"

"Demons," said Dean solemnly. He tapped the side of his nose. Was that an American thing? Chase didn't know what it meant. Maybe it was just a mentally-unbalanced thing.

"Not everything is about demons, you know," Chase said testily.

"Remember _Croatoan_? It'd be something like that."

Allison must've shared the correlation to his virus with him, although that seemed like leading him on to Chase. Of course, she hadn't known yet about the patient's condition. Typical book-writing, really, to take a weird disease that had 'happened to a friend of a friend of mine' and turn it into the demise of an entire town through the power of rage.

Chase debated stringing the patient along himself - surely he would have fascinating insight into the books - and decided against it. Definitely not worth it. He opted to take a hard line with him instead.

"Okay." Chase sighed. "I know what it's like to have family who needs looking after, who have... problems. It's not a good situation. If you really care for your friends and family, then you have to assume some responsibility for your own treatment. You can't keep depending on the others to look after you because it's not fair to them."

The patient nodded slowly, visibly distressed. "I want you to know it's a two-way street," he said. "I support them too."

"Until you get treatment, it's never going to be an equal relationship," said Chase gently. "Before your condition manifested, you would've been normal; you must feel the difference. You won't be able to help anyone until you help yourself."

The patient's face clouded over. "Thanks, Doctor Phil," he growled. "Any _parting_ words?"

Chase felt a prickle of irritation over the patient's steadfast refusal to get help, though he knew he might not be able to help it. After his experiences with his mother, he admired anyone who would take on the care of an incapacitated loved one, but it was nothing he'd ever wish on another person. Time amongst the lying dying had lessened his ability to be patient with those who could help themselves and chose not to.

So he was unable to leave without driving home his message:

"Stop being selfish, Dean."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Pockets buzzed.

"Not it," said Cameron and Chase simultaneously. They really were the model workplace couple, even if they were putting their talents to nefarious use here. Taub knew they were staying back to look at more of those books - books that, he might add, were no fun to sit on.

"Did it last time," said Foreman, smirking at Taub, hands spread out as if to say 'What can you do?'. "Welcome back, by the way."

"Still bitter?" Taub asked. "I'll bring flowers next time."

He'd already checked the patient for breaks and scarring; Dean had not been what Taub had been led to believe. The team's depiction of him - well, mainly House's - had made Taub expect Hannibal Lecter. Instead, he'd found a disarmingly easygoing young man, with good bone structure even. Riveted by _Generation Kill_, yes, and looking a little like he'd passed through a cement mixer. Taub had still gotten drawn in at first, responding unconsciously to the patient's affable smile of greeting. Of course, the team had not been armed with the foreknowledge of his mental illness.

Most of Taub's patient interaction occurred while they were sedated. Not a bad system, but one that could leave a doctor a little bored at times.

It was strange being back. Kutner's memory still seemed to hang over the place; Taub couldn't see a pair of paddles without wondering if they were the ones that had electrocuted his friend, or the ones that had set the room ablaze. Watching Chase and Cameron at work, so comfortable in a role he hadn't really seen them in, taking the spaces at the table that he and 13 and used to fit at, was unsettling. What had happened to 13, anyway? Foreman hadn't disappointed, not having changed a whit.

_This could work_, he mused: consulting for House on the juiciest of cases while holding on to his lucrative and respectable surgery. Then he realised how dark the evening sky was turning and sighed. Rachel would have his head for being back so late tonight. No, it just wouldn't be feasible without rocking the boat. Of course, that was House's favourite pastime.

He could hear the patient gasping and coughing from down the hall.

"Can't sleep," Dean wheezed. "Like waterboarding." Having exhausted his options for speech, he fell back to coughing again.

Taub pulled out his stethoscope. His eyes widened as he listened to the patient's breathing.

"There's fluid in your lungs," he said, rummaging in a nearby drawer. "Let me just get a syringe to drain it for you..."

The glass door to Dean's room slid open. Taub glanced up to see a woman standing at the foot of Dean's bed, her eyes flashing dark and blank for a moment. He blinked. He knew he shouldn't have watched _The Ring_ last night.

"Hello, Dean," the woman said, and Dean screamed at Taub.

* * *

Dean fought furiously for breath, having lost most of it trying to get the doctor out of the room. The demon waited, smirking with arms crossed, so as to mock him better once he could hear her.

"Not looking so hot, are you?" she said. "We've been saving your bunk."

_What did you do to me?_ he wanted to ask but, fighting for air, he had to settle for giving her the finger.

"Still haven't learnt to play nice." The demon tried to step forward, arm reaching as if she wanted to pull something from him, but was stopped. Her eyes flashed again and she growled, following Dean's gaze up to the ceiling. She lunged and laughed as she was held back again. "Picked up a trick or two from the angels?"

Dean's smirk - they'd used some transparent glaze thing to make the trap - was interrupted by another cough. He spat up phlegm, feeling dizzy. He wondered if she was sucking the air from the room. Wouldn't put it past a damn demon.

"It doesn't matter. You're going to die - and we'll be waiting."

He tried to console himself with the fact that she wasn't worth talking to anyway, but it didn't stop him from wanting to call her a bitch already. Without the ability to retort back, he felt naked, exposed to the demon. His hand crept to the side, reaching into the bedside table for his cellphone. He might not be able to send her back to Hell himself, but there had to be something that would.

Demons got boring after a while, same old 'things I'm going to do to you' or 'just you wait for what my evil boss has planned'. Dean ignored her, clasping his phone and pulling it out.

The demon laughed. "Calling for help, Dean? It won't matter - you'll still be dying. That little gift we slipped you is like an express ticket to Hell."

_Up yours_, he thought, making another obscene gesture. He was running out; he'd never realised how many of them needed you vertical. Did the virus guarantee Hell time? He'd have to discuss it with the others. Probably through art, which would suck. He was even worse than Sammy.

"It's so _cute_ seeing you run around trying to stop Lucifer. I think he enjoys it more than anyone... watching, knowing what you're going to become..."

He fiddled with the stupid phone until he found the recording, relieved when Sam's voice came through. When they'd memorised that exorcism, Sam had gone all geek and recited it into all their phones.

The demon spasmed, head bobbling. His head felt the same way right now.

"This won't make a difference!" she shouted. "You're Pestilence's guinea pig, someone's always going to be watching."

Oh God. Sam and Cas were probably walking into a den of locusts right now. Dean tried to hide his growing panic, though his throat was thickening and his breath coming more shallow each draw. He would have to warn them. He bit his thumb at her (he could pick up an insult from anywhere).

"They'll come for you!"

She twitched again and threw her head back, expelling the demon. He pressed the button to call the doctor back, trying to smile at the confused woman standing before him. He threw up a hand to wave her out of the room and focused on his phone again.

He was glad to see Doc Taub responding to the button, since he was the only doctor on the team who didn't seem like he was gawking or gossiping about him. Being the focus of four doctors' attention was overwhelming for someone who didn't like attention. Not from so many dudes, anyway. His imagination went a little wild imagining an all-female team treating him. Hot, if they were all like Blondie.

* * *

Taub hurried through the hospital; he didn't want to leave the patient for long. He'd be worried about the woman, too, if Dean hadn't been so incapacitated. His flailing and yelling would only have a detrimental effect on himself, though, and he hadn't stopped ranting even as Taub had left. There was only one option.

"Gail," he panted to the plump assistant behind the pharmacy counter, "2 mg lorazepam."

"Dr. Taub?" she asked in surprise.

"On a consult for House," he called, snatching the vial.

He rushed back towards the room. The woman slipped out, avoiding eye contact. Given the quarrel earlier, he was surprised to see her leaving so soon and so quietly. When he saw the patient, he understood her furtive departure. Sure it was fun to yell at someone, but having them yelling back was half the battle. He dashed to relieve Dean's straining airways, large syringe at the ready. The sedative lay discarded on the table.

The fluid was coming up a lot darker than it should. He turned on the lights. The syringe was tinged with crimson; Dean was bleeding into his lungs.

"I need some help in here!" he yelled. When the staff rushed in, he gave orders to send Dean into surgery to cauterise the bleeds. Fortunately, no one questioned his coming in to a hospital he'd resigned from and hogging an OR. Rachel would probably get a laugh out of that.

Dean grabbed his arm as they were wheeling him out, and Taub jogged alongside.

"Call Bobby," he rasped, "and Chuck. Tell... black-eyed bitch... back. Pest." He handed Taub an open cellphone.

"Not supposed to have one of those," Taub said automatically, and Dean squeezed his arm, giving him a hard stare. Taub sighed. "Tell your friends 'the bitch is back'. Got it."

"Black eyes," Dean insisted. "Pest."

Strange details to focus on, but okay. Maybe Dean had watched that showing of _The Ring_ too. Taub nodded, a tight and perfunctory smile on his face. Dean's posture drooped after that, his eyes glazing.

Taub gave him a final appraising look, judging that he was safe enough with Emerg for Taub to report back to House and the team. A small stream of blood oozed its way onto the gurney lining, and Taub recalled the matter of the as-of-yet-untreatable virus.

"Treat him as contagious," he told the staff, then headed back to the office. Chase would probably be interested in being one of the hands in the OR.

"What's that?" House asked him when they had settled down a little (Chase _had_ wanted into surgery). Taub looked down at his hand. He'd forgotten about the phone.

"The patient gave it to me," he said, still a little perplexed. House snatched the phone and Taub reached for it on instinct before conceding to resistance being futile. "Was pretty adamant about me passing something on."

House pressed the buttons avidly. "Wow. Brandi with an 'i'? Jasmine? This guy was really overcompensating, even without the, uh , 'rockin ringtones'." He tore his gaze away from it. "What was the message?"

Taub shrugged uncomfortably and repeated Dean's disjointed words. "He was fighting with a woman right before," he explained. "I thought he was going to hurt himself, he was so mad. She must've been the one he was talking about."

"Maybe he does have kids after all," suggested Foreman, "if that's who the 'pest' is. You think she's still in the hospital?"

Taub shook his head. "She left pretty quickly once he ran out of air."

"Well, that's not suspicious," said House. "Oh well, must be after all those government secrets in his head."

"Yeah, because conspiracy theorists always go after each other for knowing too much."

"Downer. I think I know what the problem is."

"I've lost that loving feeling?"

"No wonder your hair is falling out. Want your job back?"

Taub avoided responding to House's flippant offer. It was bound to be snatched away the second he showed any interest.

"Can I get the phone back?" he persisted.

"I'm not sure sending his message is such a good idea anyway," said Cameron. "Everyone who's visited seems to take their cues from him. Given his mental status, is that really something we want to encourage?"

"This phone is like a frat boy's," said House, sounding disappointed. "Booty calls, motel listings, and boasts about who beat up whom."

"So what?" said Foreman to Cameron. "I doubt it'll make a difference in the grand scheme of things."

"Why does he have a picture of a ball of twine, anyway?"

Foreman snatched the phone from House.

Taub held out his hand. "I'll take that." He went off to place the call, shaking his head. The more things changed, the more things stayed the same.

* * *

Later, Cameron went to check the patient's room on her way to observing the surgery. He'd be in ICU after this, so she'd have to see about getting his belongings moved. Somehow, tasks like that always fell to her. That was why Robert had to do most of the housework. He was a better cook, anyway, even if he did have a strange obsession with something called 'Vegemite'.

She stopped short at the doorway.

"Um," was the best she could come up with to address the sight before her.

There was a tangled nest of cords on the bed, and some weirdly marked paper strewn on the floor. That was nothing, though. The bearded men staring guiltily at her, one in a wheelchair clutching the calves of the other, who was standing on the armrests, defied explanation.

"What-?" she tried. The man standing on the wheelchair swayed a little, but everyone was still too astounded to move.

"This is Dean's room, right?" the seated one demanded.

"Uh... not really any more, we're moving him after his surgery." She jumped a little, worried about confidentiality. "You did know-"

"Just got the message," said the younger man, who now that Cameron wasn't too embarrassed to look at, she could recognise as the author, Chuck.

She turned to the man with the cap. "Are you Bobby? My colleague would've spoken to you." The more polite introductions they had, the longer they could put off the ensuing awkward questions.

Bobby nodded, and Cameron prepared to introduce herself, but Chuck refused to play along. "Can I get some help here? I think I'm stuck."

"Oh. Right. Sure." Cameron moved forward and gripped his hand to help him down. The whole time, she was worried he would fall on her (was he drunk? She thought she caught a whiff), but he made it to the floor after a number of wobbles. "So, uh ..." Her lips puckered a few times before she managed to make out, "What..." before getting sidetracked by the absurdity of the situation again.

"Thought we'd set up a few... decorations to welcome him back after," Bobby muttered gruffly, not meeting her eyes.

Cameron's heart melted, although the doctor in her wanted to warn them that coming out of surgery wasn't a given. Her softer side won out.

"I'll take you to the ICU," she said kindly. "I need to get another room for him, anyway."

The men scooped up the mess of supplies they'd brought - was there a _webcam_ in there? She didn't think she wanted to know.

"I was afraid this would happen," Chuck said forlornly as they trailed out of the room, banner dragging behind them.

Bobby whacked him. "Idjit."

Cameron made it to the privacy of the elevator to the operating theatre before she burst into laughter. Imagining what House would've done only made her laugh harder.

Now that she thought about it, it wasn't even visiting hours. Hospital security really _did_ suck.

* * *

A demon lay in the backseat, struggling against bespelled bondings, as Sam and Castiel staked out the nest before them. Odds were not looking good so far. Therefore, it was the perfect time for Sam to receive a text from Bobby that just said, "_Pestilence_."

A chorus of 'Oh shit' in his head, Sam called Bobby back.

"You sure?" he asked hopefully, and Bobby scoffed.

"Can never be sure, Sam. But a demon paid Dean a little visit tonight and brought up Pestilence. Lotsa demons in this town, so I'm thinkin' he's a player."

"I think he's _here_." That was the only reason for the sheer numbers swarming the place. Excitement and trepidation rose in Sam. He gulped. "How's Dean, anyway? He get the demon?"

Bobby paused. "He got it. We're on our way to the hospital now." He hung up.

"Bobby? Is he o-" Sam slammed his phone shut and shoved it in his pocket. "Dammit!"

"What is it?" asked Cas. "Are you out of minutes?" Sam looked warily at the demon they'd forced to direct them here.

"I'd rather not say in front of him," he mumbled.

Cas nodded, and in one swift move he took Ruby's knife from Sam's other hand and stabbed the demon in the heart.

Sam's jaw dropped even as his nose tingled from the scent. "Dean's going to kill you if you get the upholstery dirty!"

Cas looked unconcerned. "Dean is far too attached to Earthly goods sometimes."

"... true. So Pestilence might be in there. I'm thinking we should both be immune, right? I mean, I couldn't catch Croatoan, and I don't have what Dean has."

"We should be, yes."

"So how do we deal with all the guards?"

"I think I can create a diversion."

"Oh yeah, like what? No offense, Cas, but last diversion of yours I remember, you ended up dead."

"It depends. What are some good explosives and where can I find them?"

Sam's eyebrows rose. Hunting with someone who wasn't Dean (not to mention, who was an angel) was quite the experience. He told Cas what he could remember Caleb liking.

As they got out of the car, Cas said, "Sam?"

He stopped. "Yeah?"

"Did Bobby update you on Dean's status?"

"No, actually," Sam said slowly, brow furrowing. "I don't know how he is. So, Horseman or not, this better be a quick mission. Any chance you can zap me to the roof? Then I can work my way down."

From his vantage point, the ensuing explosions were magnificent. He just hoped they could make it out, alive, before the police and firefighters came.

* * *

Yesterday had been a hell of a long day, according to House, so he strolled in in time for an early lunch. It was later than even he'd expected; an old factory en route was billowing smokes and ashes, so he'd had to detour.

Not up to encountering the team yet, he headed over to the patient's new room. Now that he'd admitted to insanity, he was a much more interesting case.

The visitors were hunched over the bed when he came in, turning to him as if he'd interrupted a session of D&D right during a war council. He snorted when he noticed the banner, taped on the ceiling. It looked like something a little girl would make if her friend got the tonsils out.

"I finished your books," he said to the author, who perked up a little at hearing that.

"Really? How were they?"

Almost everyone else in the room shook their heads forebodingly at him. The brother's nose flared threateningly.

"Awful," said House. "Like _Twilight_ for men." The author's face fell. "Are there any more?"

The author grinned. "Well, actually-"

"I will end you," wheezed the patient.

The brother flew out of his chair and advanced upon the author, looming ominously. "Dude, we talked about this."

Chuck's Adam's apple bobbed.

"Oh, come on," said House. "All in the interest of medicine."

"So help me, Chuck, if there is one more word out there-" The brother stepped forward, about to back the author into the wall when Chuck tripped over House's cane. His head hit the wall, hard, and he cursed loudly. The brother backed up instantly, concerned.

The ground started to roll and shake, streetlights outside flaring. The room filled with a bright, almost blinding light. House grabbed for the table and found himself being grabbed by the brother, who was also holding onto the wall.

What was with all the tremors lately? House blamed global warming. Either that, or Cuddy had taken off the Spanx and started shimmying.

The author was yelling, but all he heard was, "…POKE THE BEAR!" before Chuck ran off again, escaping the quake. Seriously, was wimpiness a superpower these days? Chase was still the same.

The boyfriend rushed towards the window - worst possible place to be - and started screaming himself, almost too loud to be human, at first just babble but then, "DEAN WINCHESTER IS DYING!"

The silence that met his statement as the shaking subsided was broken by the television exploding. In the fading glare of the light, House caught a glimpse of the angry incredulity on his patient's face.

No one moved at first, the brother's hold still firm on House. The expression on the other faces he could see mirrored Dean's. In the hall, he could hear the bustle and relief of everyone getting back to business; in here, it was as if the statement had been the real earthquake. They had to know the prognosis by now. Were they really that delusional?

The boyfriend slumped and faced them, eyes blazing, oblivious to everyone's stares. He gazed upwards, pleading, as if he knew he was about to meet his reckoning.

"Castiel!" barked the patient. Even House recoiled at the sheer wrath in his tone. The heretofore-nameless Castiel tightened his posture.

Here it came.

The couple locked upon each other, indifferent to the others in the room. He and the other spectators watched the showdown shamelessly.

"Dean," said Castiel resignedly. "It's your only chance."

"Believing in your mortality does wonders for healing," quipped House, though they wouldn't hear him. The brother absently released his arm and held out a giant paw to forestall him.

"You lied about what you were doing," said Dean.

Castiel's fists clenched and unclenched indecisively. "You wouldn't have agreed. Nothing else is going to work."

"Glass half-full type, huh?" said House.

"You're going to have to go now," Dean said, inexorable.

Castiel stepped forward, looking almost as angry as Dean. "I fell for you, gave you everything." ("Ah, _amore_," muttered House.) "If you die, I have nothing else _left_ to give you, and there will be no one that can fix the world."

Dean swallowed.

"They don't write _that _on Hallmark cards," remarked House. That broke their focus.

"_Shut the fuck up!_" Dean roared at him. House contemplated bringing out the restraints; Taub had mentioned an earlier 'episode'. You couldn't reason with fury.

"Dean!" said Sam. His brother's eyes snapped to him, then away in exasperation.

"Don't forsake me now," Castiel ground out ominously.

There was _something_ going on here, thought House, something they were playing at that was beyond just a stupidly needy lover's spat, even if you allowed for the participants being drama queens with unerring concentration. Their delusions of grandeur must be feeding into it; the real question was _how_.

Dean let out a breath, rubbing a hand across his face. The rage drained out of him.

"You're _all_ going to have to go now," he said, slowly and deliberately, laying down his proclamation. His gaze flicked across the room. "Heaven knows I'm here dying. Anyone's guess who'd get targeted next. I don't want to put anyone at risk. The only safe thing to do is for all of you to get far away from me."

Cold. Had they considered psychopathy yet? The boyfriend had faced that pronouncement calmly, too. The patient was so strange he was almost interested in bringing on a shrink. Maybe he'd spend one of his own therapy sessions on an unofficial consult.

"Actually, we think it spreads through blood," House corrected him, "and no one else has contracted it yet, so-"

"Dean, no!" exclaimed his brother, turning on the waterworks a little.

House gave up. If they ever sued, he could just say they never listened.

Sam continued, "Remember the Croatoan outbreak... in the books... where you stayed with me? Well, it's my turn, Dean, and I'm staying with you."

"So you hate the books until it comes time to quote them? Get out of the fanboy closet already, I want to read the next ones."

"Do you ever stop yapping?" demanded Bobby. "Give them their damn moment already."

"This is different," said Dean. "Someone might try to... make me an offer I can't refuse, and you'd know why I couldn't."

Ah, the Godfather as a metaphor for death. House supposed murderers liked coming up with things like that.

"Maybe," Sam faltered, "maybe I'm strong enough."

"To take on this virus?" retorted House. "Don't be a fool. Not that you have much chance of catching it, as I said, because-"

"Yeah, Sammy, don't be a fool," repeated Dean with a wry smirk. Very selective hearing. "I appreciate the offer and all, but you need to get away. Go hang out at Bobby's for a while or something."

"I'm staying," said Sam.

Dean frowned. "I can't stop you from staying in the area, but unless I get better, get the all-clear... I don't want to see you here. That clear?"

"I'm coming back."

"Give me a day. Promise?"

Just long enough to see if he would live or die. The patient wasn't playing a long game here.

Sam sighed. "Fine."

"Well, later," Dean said to the others. "Gimme a call or two, say bye to Chuck for me, keep it classy."

He had a few whispered goodbyes with the others. Judging by the last message he'd relayed, he just wanted to reveal a mystery over a bug in a purple basement.

They filed out, murmuring reassurances, Castiel staring mournfully back. Dean smiled and waved.

He crumpled once they had gone.

"Well, that was stupid," said House. "They still could've come and seen you through the glass."

"You'll be calling the feds in," Dean said hollowly. "Better that they get away."

"I probably won't. If you haven't noticed, you're kind of on death's door. I give it a day or less - same amount of time you gave your brother, _coincidentally_. Sure you don't want to call your ragtag band of miscreants back?"

Dean's mouth twisted. "Why do you care?"

"Oh, I don't. I just find it remarkable that you're sending away your support at the eleventh hour. One might think that you would rather not die easily, since you seem so set on dying. You don't think you deserve their company, do you?"

Jaw clenching. "As I said, it'll be better for them to not be here when everything goes down."

"You're clearly no doctor, so I feel a little bad about giving away trade secrets, but-" theatrical whisper- "if you were going to infect them, it would've happened already."

Dean shook his head. "I have a feeling things are going to get worse, and I think you do, too. I don't want them around for that."

"You can cut the martyr act already, it's not going to fool anyone. I _know _you're a murderer, my staff thinks you're crazy, and you just sent away the only people about to listen to you. General opinion of you is not getting higher because you're pretending that your self-inflicted punishment is supposed to be noble."

Eyes closed, Dean murmured. "Doc, I'm too tired to deal with this shit. Please."

House continued, undeterred. "You're taking Chase's advice." Chase's position had surprised him, actually. Before, he'd supported that kind of abject slavery, having prostrated himself before his mother that way. Now, he was backing institutionalisation. He'd expect fights in the Chase household over it if Cameron's position on the matter wasn't to report, report, report.

Dean looked at House with surprise. "The one who calls me 'Dane'?"

House shook his head. "That's just his mushmouth. Enunciate properly and it comes out as 'Psycho Killer'. Mummy was a lush when he was young - whoops, guess I wasn't supposed to say. I'm sure he cried on your shoulder already anyway."

"That's what he was getting at?"

"Chase would've felt sorry for your 'people' and told them to dump you. Or vice versa, as long as you ended up alone. I think he's a little jealous that you're prettier than he is."

"Isn't everyone," said the patient absently, as if used to giving that answer but not currently having the spirit to do so properly. "I dunno, it was the only thing to do."

"So you keep saying," said House. "If you think you're so likely to kick the bucket, though, that millstone around their necks is already loosening. Sure you didn't just send them away to make sure they can't get closure on the situation? Keep them clinging to you from beyond the grave?"

Dean smiled. "Usually someone who says things like that to me is someone I can respond to with, 'Go to Hell'. But you-" he pointed, Joker face still in place - "you help people, that's something I get, I really do, even if you got no call to judge me. I dunno what to say to you. Maybe 'screw off, you son of a bitch'."

"And now you're just distracting yourself."

Dean's mouth stretched almost to his ears. "Screw off," he said sweetly, "you _son of a bitch_."

"If you've just sent everyone away, us doctors are going to be the only ones left for you to talk to," pointed out House. "I'll send Doctor Cameron - whoops, wrong team - send Doctor Chase to provide some eye candy."

"I'd rather have the chick."

"That fight with your boyfriend knocked you right through the closet, huh? What I don't understand is why it matters when _he_ says you're dying, it's grounds for banishment. You've been saying it all along."

Dean shook his head, not even addressing his first jibe. Disappointing. "It's who he told."

"Your brother? The author?" House cocked his head. "Oh wait, he told the _earthquake_ and the _streetlights_. That's just scream therapy. Jealous you missed that group session?"

"You wouldn't understand," said Dean.

"Ooh, let me guess, you believe in aliens too. He's just trying to phone home."

A startled laugh burst out of Dean, though his eyes looked as if he'd seen something important torn away from him. Which House supposed he had, by his own hand. Didn't get him much sympathy, that. He didn't leave yet, intrigued by what had happened and ready to psychoanalyse it.

"I'm going to pretend to sleep now," said his patient, "since you don't seem like the type to enjoy naptime at the zoo." He turned his head away from House.

When House left, the brother was still in the hallway, helping a nursing attendant pick up papers and sneaking glimpses into the room.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N**: shamefully long time coming (horribly stuck on how to write Nolan+House) but here it is. And I didn't mispost, I promise, even if it is a little confusing at first. It'll be back to a more traditional style for the next chapter. In the meantime, the songs referenced are Cat Stevens' "Moonshadow" (not as creepy as lyrics might suggest) and The Beatles' "I'm Looking Through You." They should actually sync up in-between the dialogue, if you're interested in playing along with. I had fun coming up with hypothetical musical tastes. Thanks to everyone for reading; I love that people are interested in my work :) about to conk off here; hopefully next author's note will be more to form.

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

"Hey, son."

Dean shifted, waking, and shook his head to clear it. "Dad," he said drowsily. "You got Sammy's call?" He scratched absently at the wires hanging off his chest. His heart still felt weird, fluttery and kind of queasy. Now that Dad was here, things would be all right, though. Even if it was stupidly hot in here. He flailed feebly, trying to kick off his blankets. They weighed a ton, no wonder he felt so stifled.

Dad nodded. 'Course, he looked like it was a cool fall day. Dean was sweating buckets here.

"What did I tell you about tasers? Never pull the trigger unless-"

"-you know you won't get zapped too," finished Dean. "Sorry, sir."

"Things aren't looking so good, champ."

"What?" Dean struggled to lift his head. "No, it'll be okay. Now you're here, you & Sammy can team up to get the demon who killed Mom."

"I mean for you."

"I dunno, this... it's not the worst way to go, y'know? I'm tired, Dad." He blew on his forehead.

"I don't think I like that attitude, soldier," Dad said sternly, and Dean dug deep for a way to realign himself. "We need you on this fight, Dean." All right. He had to keep going.

"Okay. We'll think of something. Call someone. There's gotta be a way."

Dad smiled his secretive I-have-a-plan smile. "I think I found an in." He soaked a cloth (the thought popped up that it was holy water, though he didn't know how it got that way, and Dad shouldn't waste it) and wiped Dean's face. His plan revealed itself a little when a singing voice floated into the room. Dean shot up, coughing.

"_I'm being followed by a moonshadow_..."

One of his bedtime songs.

"Mom?" Dean said incredulously. He strained to get out of bed, pushing things away with abandon, but he couldn't muster the strength to get up, not even for Mom. Hopefully Sam wouldn't drop in, see him being weak as a kitten like this. But Sam'd have to, then he'd get to see- "Is it really her?" Excitement and hope stirred in him.

Dad shook his head. "Just an echo, Dean. But my associates have been able to reach her."

Spirit communication was iffy business, and Dean was sure that had been the first thing his dad had tried on the search for the demon. Why was it only working now?

"Dad," he said warily, "who you dealing with? Witch? Djinn?" Please let it not be a witch.

"_...yes if I ever lose my hands..."_

"It's someone on our side. Took me a while to believe them, but they're the real deal."

"_... I won't have to work no more._"

Dean struggled to keep them all straight in his head at once: Mom, Dad, and these allies. His dad was talking, probably explaining them, but he was sick, and _Mom_ was there, calling to him. How was he supposed to hold on? He let himself drift, her voice beside him. To think that, once, it used to be Mom whose presence was absolute. Lately, the only person he could count on that way was Sam. Where was Sam?

"_...if my colours all run dry, yes if I ever lose my eyes, oh if... I won't have to cry no more._"

"Dean!" Dad gave him a light tap. "You gotta stay on track here. There are decisions to make."

"What?" He blinked, trying to clear his mind. "All right. What do I have to do?"

"It's simple. You wanna make all this go away, get out of the hospital, you just have to say 'yes'."

"_I won't mourn, and I won't beg._"

"'Yes'?"

"The angels are going to come to you."

"Angels?" Why now? Mom's song echoing through the room without her here to sing it was proof enough that they didn't bother. But Dad had said so, it must be real.

Angels. Dean took stock of the room. The holy water, the shattered television. He clapped a hand to his collarbone and his amulet was gone.

For a moment, it was all connected, then it spun out of control again.

He turned to see his dad sitting next to him. He could hear his mother's voice singing to him like an angel on his shoulder (one of her favourite songs – "_Did it take long to find me, I ask the faithful light_") but first things first.

"How's Sammy?" he asked. "He make it out of the car accident okay?" He tugged at his hospital gown. It was soaked through. Damn, was it hot in here.

"He's fine. It was a close shave for you, though, Deano."

Dad hadn't called him that in years. He must've been really sick. The song melted away and shifted, still his mother's voice but nothing he'd heard from her.

"_I'm looking through you,_" she sang, fixing him in place with cold panic, "_where did you go?_" His breath caught. Something must be wrong, _had_ to be, because the alternative would be that much worse.

"I don't think I'm out of the woods yet, Dad. I can hear..." _Mom_, he wanted to say, _except maybe not_, but it would only hurt his father. He swallowed. It hurt. "Voices. A voice."

"_...but you have changed..._"

Dad breezed right by it. "It's okay, Dean. It's all going to work out, you'll see."

That wasn't like him, to avoid signs of the supernatural. Dean narrowed his eyes.

"What is it, Dad?"

"Don't worry, it's all part of the plan," explained his father, and went on to elaborate at length, but Dean could only hold so much in his sore old noggin right now. Dad would tell him what part he had to play.

"_Why, tell me why, did you not treat me right?_" Mom asked sadly. "_Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight._"

"No," he blurted, interrupting Dad. "Something's not right."

Dad gripped his arm, hard. Dean winced. There were bruises on his arm that he didn't remember getting.

"_... only difference is you're down there..._"

"Dean! They're on their way. You say yes, you can get the demon. We can get our lives back."

"What about you? Sammy?"

"Just you, Dean. It's all up to you."

"No. No, it can't be, that's not right." That wasn't how things worked in their family.

Dean's head spun. His mother told him she was looking through him, he wasn't the same. Dad nodded and smiled at his side. The bald man who appeared at the foot of the bed smirked and waited. Where had he come from?

"Do what your mother would've wanted, Deano," Dad urged him.

He caught sight of the water - holy water - and it all came together. Mom's voice morphed and faded.

"Zach!" he gasped, and the angel clapped.

"Got it in one! Or five. This repetition is getting tedious, why don't you tell Father here what he's been waiting for."

Wait - Zachariah and Dad - they didn't... sit in a room together. Dad was-

"No!" Dean cried. He tried not to look in the illusion's direction. It _had_ to be an illusion, Dad wouldn't...

Oh. Except, Dad _had_ been on board with Michael.

"You're on borrowed time, here, Dean - ours. Say no, I let go, you slip right back into Hell. It'll take an awful long time to get you back."

"No," Dean yelled. "I'm not letting Michael in. He can't have me." Dad didn't know what he knew about them. He grabbed the knife under his pillow and sliced his hand. Might be stupid, but he had to at least try for an Angel-Away.

Then his strength drained away, as Zachariah had threatened, and he found his failing limbs slammed back. He was lost.

"Come on, Dean," growled Dad.

"No," was the last thing he got out before his vision faded to black.

* * *

"No," moaned the patient. "... can't... not right." House's pen hovered over his 'sexual abuse or coming out?' tally, unsure what this one counted as. The patient's episodes were cyclical, all coming back to yelling about dicks, condoms, angels and not letting some guy named Michael take him. He hadn't even noticed that there was anyone else in the room with him, talking to the chairs and walls instead.

"Better than the movies," he commented to his shrink, who had his own notepad out. Dr. Nolan's Mayfield ID card was still on. There had been days when House had craved that card and the power it symbolised – doors, ping pong, instruments.

"I agree it's an interesting case," said Dr. Nolan, cutting past the snark as usual, "though I don't see why you needed me as a consult."

"Cuddy's footing the bill on this one, I'm going hog-wild. Why did you take me up on the offer?"

"A chance to watch you at work? How could I pass that up?"

House grumbled. He got the impression that this might come back to bite him in the ass over the next few sessions. With his patient in steep decline (all right, _interesting_ decline), he wouldn't have been able to make it to the session anyway, and hell if he was going to schedule a makeup. Inviting Nolan to observe his patient killed two repellent birds with one stone.

"Zach," the patient panted, for what must've been the third time that hour. Seems they were doomed to run through a list of the patient's greatest hits, or maybe hookups; House suspected that for him, they might be one and the same. Can't be with the one you love, then kill the one you're with, so to speak. It hadn't escaped his notice that the books tried to avoid any mention of actual relationships, despite Dean being in one.

Although, given the circumstances of that afternoon, not anymore.

"No," Dean whimpered. House fiddled with his pen, out of scandalous theories or insights to write down.

"Is there always this much repetition?' he asked his shrink. "Boy, you must be bored with life."

Nolan pinned him with a reproving gaze. "I think you're acquainted with some of my patients. In fact, they've been asking about you. If you're bored, we can talk about whether you plan on contacting them yourself."

"No," the patient persisted, staring past the foot of his bed, "... not... Michael... can't have..."

"Where's the popcorn when you need it?"

Which turned into one of those 'What's the worst that could happen?' moments, as the patient _yanked out a knife_ (how had Cameron missed that? She was so fired) and dug it across his hand. House and Nolan shot to their feet.

"Shit!" House rushed to get gloves on. "No direct contact!" he called to the other doctor. "We think he's contagious."

The patient, sick puppy that he was, dipped his other hand into the welling blood and daubed his bedside table with it.

There was lorazepam on the table, luckily. House filled a syringe, lunged over and jabbed it into the patient's IV before throwing himself far out of the reach of the knife. It would still take a minute to work, so he pressed the call button and hoped the patient wouldn't carve up any more veins in the meantime.

Once the sedative kicked in, Nolan grabbed the patient's bloody arm with a gloved hand. His eyes widened.

"Greg," he said, "he's burning up."

"What?" House looked at the monitors; he would've spotted something out of the ordinary. Then he noticed the way the electrodes were hanging off the patient. Dumb bastard had half-detached them. "Come on, Dean," he growled, and swore again. "We need to put him in an ice bath!" he called to the staff who came in. At this point, he didn't want to resort to chemical means for soothing the fever. The patient's liver was too far gone; he wouldn't even have used the sedative if not for the weapon involved. He looked at Dr. Nolan. "You mind if I take care of this?"

"No. Said I'd watch you work."

Definitely the best session they'd had so far.

House got the patient hosed down & settled in an ice bath and sent one of his minions to do the rest of the dirty work. He was still cursing himself out for not pinpointing the true cause of the patient's delusions.

In his office later with Nolan, he asked, "What did you think of my patient?"

The other doctor clasped his hands over his knee, far more at ease than he should've been. House hadn't offered him Wilson's chair, after all, and the rest had been chosen with the express purpose of getting people out of them as soon as possible. "He was delirious. I can't comment on his mental state other than that, and you know it."

"I really thought he was having a psychotic episode," House admitted. "This case was supposed to get easier when we found out what he had. I'm missing something with this one."

"He can't be the first of your patients to have mental illness. You've never brought me in to see any other patients. Why this one?"

"Cuddy referred the case to me – relic from the bad-boy years, violent criminal record. She's not charging them, gave me carte blanche; she really wants it solved." House lapsed into silence, searching for a way to describe the scene that had unfolded earlier that day. That strange intensity surrounding the way the patient spoke to the others, how - why - he'd sent them away.

"Cuddy, your boss? That doesn't seem like her."

"My..." How would one describe who Cuddy was to him? "Yes. My boss." He hastily changed the subject by charging through a list of the patient's stats. "What do you think?"

Nolan rested his chin on his hand. "Isn't this usually something you go over with Wilson?"

"Not on Anime Night, I can't."

"Have you discussed the case with him before?"

"He didn't help. Cuddy got to him first, anyway."

"Oh," said Nolan, in that significant way that set House's teeth on edge. Much as he hated to recognize, he was Nolan's case to crack open at will and tease the mysteries out of the way House did to his own patients. He felt a twinge of panic about the line of questioning he knew was coming. "You are still living with him, aren't you?"

"Nope. Too many pictures of bald people. I'm back at my own place now."

"What was your fight about?"

House was ready for him. "Why does everyone assume it's always _my_... oh."

Nolan raised his eyebrows.

"I bugged him," said House.

Fortunately, he had a therapist whose reaction was simply, "Was it the first time you've done that?"

House snorted. "Course not, though usually I give someone else the dirty work."

"And he found out?"

"Boy did he." House let out a mirthless huff. "But it proved me right, he _was _hiding something. Lying on Cuddy's behalf."

"So the two people you're closest to are lying to you? Must be lonely."

"Everybody lies," House reiterated. "No reason why they should be any different."

"But it is different, isn't it?"

House rubbed his leg. "They lie to me about a lot of things. Usually I figure out what. Figured it out this time too. It's just..."

"What?"

"Why here? Why now? If she'd just told me, it wouldn't have come down to this. They were saying I wouldn't believe them - but I did - and they're meeting up later. Like they're conspiring against me."

"You don't think they trust you, that something else is going on."

"Yes," said House. "I don't even know what it could be about me. Haven't been going to bars or cockfights lately."

"Good," Nolan said out of habit. Sometimes, House alluded to destructive behaviour just to push his buttons. Nolan leaned forward. "It doesn't sound like you trust them, either. Little assignment this week, I'd like you to open up to them."

House's mouth drew together as if he'd just bit into a lemon.

"They're your support right now," pointed out Nolan. "Why isolate them at a time like this, over a patient? If their information is about him, it would be better to get it from the source, anyway."

Now Nolan was just playing devil's advocate. Clearly, House _hadn't_ been telling him enough about his cases, if this is how he thought he operated.

"That's not how I work," said House tersely. "That's not even how people work. We think information is a currency to be hoarded and only handed out when we want something."

"What do you think Wilson and Cuddy want, then?"

"I don't know. I wish I did." He'd have to perform a stakeout somewhere, he could tell, but the only holdup was knowing where.

"What do _you _want?" Nolan asked.

House fiddled with his giant baseball, spinning it across his desk.

"I want answers," he said, "I want–"

He stopped. Answering Nolan's probing questions was one thing, but no reason it had to involve names.

"Let's focus on some goals maybe," Nolan suggested.

"Sure. Kick the patient out once he can walk, keep him from pulling the gangster act, and find out what's going on with Cuddy and Wilson."

"Okay. Good short-term plans. What about in the long term?"

He thought about it

"I don't want to be alone." He tapped his chin, swivelling his chair back and forth. "I want… is it too _bourgeois_ to want to be happy?" He had to avoid Nolan's steady gaze; unease set in just through saying it.

"Is there really any better aim?" Nolan returned.

"Sure," said House. "I could cure cancer. Takes care of the first issue, too." Except then Wilson would be out of a job, or a glorified rad tech. Then, he'd probably start joining random support groups to get his fix of needy, and that could never go well. House could fight dirty – it was his only method, really – but he doubted his ability to hold his own in a fight club.

"You're expressing yourself," said Nolan, "articulating what you want."

"Thanks for the update." Good thing the hospital covered this. In fact, this particular session was going straight on Winchester's tab. He could see how that would end up. Cuddy would storm in, breasts heaving, and demand an answer. House would simply pretend to be on the phone and spin a finger next to his ear in the tried-and-tested gesture for 'crazy'. Except she'd seemed pleased with the exhorbitant fees he was racking up – typical administrator, equating cost with effort.

"I agree you shouldn't be alone right now. You're still in rehab. It's good that you're taking positive steps towards healing, though."

"Hey, I resent that," protested House.

"What, steps?" Nolan glanced shrewdly at House's aching leg, propped up on the glass desk. "Since when?"

"No, _positive_." He instilled his best bitter into the word.

"Call it what you will," said Nolan with more good humour than usual. Ugh. House was putting him on smug alert. "The fact is that not only did you come up with goals for the future, but you shared them with me."

"And am wishing I didn't," mumbled House.

"I'm aware you normally wouldn't have asked for me if you were speaking with Wilson." House opened his mouth to protest – the patient was the one who was the problem here. Nolan continued, "I'm flattered that you chose me in the meantime, knowing how you feel about psychiatrists."

"Don't get too excited, it's a far cry from Best Man."

"I might even say," Nolan added, rubbing it in, "that you _wanted_ me here. I've seen you at your worst, and solving cases is your best. It's understandable that re-establishing yourself as a professional also means proving your position to me."

"Are you done?"

Nolan dropped the affable air and became all business. House could see his machinations a mile away: reach out, provide a little encouragement and analysis, then back to normal so not to scare the patient off. Just because he didn't use them didn't mean he hadn't learnt them.

"Why don't you tell me about your patient?"

House took a deep breath and tried to put it all together."That's the funny thing about him. Every time I try to describe him, the story's changed. Which, sure, when it comes to the disease, I'm used to. But he takes 'everybody lying' to an art form, even before I realised he's a pathological about it."

"Sounds like your kind of case."

''Everyone keeps saying that. I don't agree." Seeing that Nolan was about to ask 'Why not?', House barrelled ahead with the medical twists and turns they'd taken so far then tried to describe the roadblocks that kept happening around the patient.

From the crimes (like the cane) to the medical history, the brother's results still baffling, and the mental illness, to the books based off his delusions. The fight, he still couldn't quite make sense of. The patient had broken up with his boyfriend and sent everyone away, when none of them were happy with that, when the boyfriend had only been saying the same thing he had all along.

"In his condition, he probably thinks outside forces are after him – or them," said Nolan.

"I think he thought it was the earthquakes." He felt a momentary flash of panic thinking about the possible consequences of the disturbances.

"What is it?"

"My piano," said House. "I'm more the Russian Roulette than home insurance type."

"Are you saying," said Nolan, that curbed excitement of 'making a discovery' creeping into his voice again, "that you haven't gone home since Wilson asked you to leave? When was that?"

"It's been one day. I know you're a psychiatrist, but even you should be able to tell that my patient needs monitoring."

"Greg. When are you planning on going back? Going home?"

"Not 'til I've solved the case, of course. Turns out if you stick a face mask on the On-Call Room handle, they leave you alone. Thought it only worked that way on _Dr. Sexy_."

"This isn't your normal routine."

"This isn't a normal case," House retorted. Give a shrink an inch and he'd claw at your feet for a mile that just wasn't there.

"Okay," said Nolan. He drummed his fingers together expectantly and waited.

"I'm having a hard time telling what's symptomatic and what's not. Everyone we've questioned has been incredibly tight-lipped, he gave us false medical records, and based on the general onset of the virus, I can't be sure that his mental illness isn't just another symptom."

"Here, I can try to help. When did it first appear?"

"Onset was–" House consulted Cameron's, no, Chase's notes (clearly, Aussies wrote like girls)– "actually, the brother, four years younger, says he can't remember his brother not having it."

"Really?" Nolan looked sceptical. House tossed the notes over to him, deriving some slight satisfaction when Nolan fumbled the catch, papers fluttering to the floor. Hee. Not so comfy-looking now. "That is unusual. Onset's usually the teenage years." He chuckled as he read. "He's certainly imaginative."

House tilted his chair back and forth, but Nolan seemed reluctant to hand over the file.

"Can I take a copy of this back with me?" he asked, throwing House for a loop.

"Yeah," said House, "I'll tell Bartleby to get right on it. I thought you were going to give me your opinion now?"

"Oh, it'd be unfair to you to co-opt your session time," Nolan said, the picture of innocence. "Now, I thought we could work through some roleplay."

Played. He could barely squeeze out his requisite response of, "Kinky."

"Let's say I'm Wilson," Nolan continued, "and you've come to discuss our trust issues. What would you want to tell him – me?"

House eyed his lower desk drawer. Worst. Session. Ever. He wondered if he could pass off vodka as water.

* * *

"What did you say to him?"

"What did _I_ say to him. What did _you_ say to him?"

"I told him to move out."

"Oh, and you think this is my fault? I just told him I used to date one of them!"

"You really don't know the effect that would have on him?"

"Come here, see for yourself."

"Is that House's shrink?"

"Coming here, a session at work – must be an emergency."

"Should we wait for the shrink to come out and ask?"

"Don't get too close! They'll see us!"

"He'll just tell us to apologise and go back to him."

"We do _not_ need to apologise."

"You're telling me. You know, I blame you for this."

"Me? I didn't ask for things to happen this way."

"I didn't ask to be told!"

"Actually, you did. That's what got us into this mess in the first place."

"Why are we whispering anyway?"

"Shh!"

"I think there's still a pair of opera glasses in my office."

"Fine. Go get them."

"Why me?"

"It's your office, you know where you put them... and I'm your boss."

Wilson stalked off to his office, neck craned towards House's the entire way, and Cuddy leaned against the wall, worrying.

* * *

Chuck, it turned out, had fled the state by the time Sam got back to the motel, only a harried note of apology left behind. Bobby was waiting at the Impala, gazing at the sky with trepidation, as if he expected another angelic swoop-by.

"Tell me this angel alert is going to work," he said.

"I think it might be all we got left," said Sam. "Remember, though, it's Dean. He always makes it through."

"Well, that's always the case until it ain't." Bobby switched over to the passenger side. "You take the wheel, son. I'm still feeling a little shook up from that quake."

Sam glanced at Bobby's trembling hand and gave it a reassuring, if awkward, pat that Bobby tried to pretend hadn't happened. The trembling eased, though.

"Actually," Sam said as he slid into the driver's seat, "I'm going to stay around. In case something happens. Drive you to the bus station?"

"Good enough. You shielded? Sigils in the room?"

"Yessir."

"Good. I'm not interested in coming back to bail out your sorry ass again, you hear?"

Sam smiled. "Yes, Bobby."

Bobby blinked hard, tearing up. "And you take care of that fool brother of yours. Every time he so much as breathes sideways, now, I want you to let me know. Got that?" He swiped a hand across his face. "Always gotta play the 'Get Out of Death Free' card," he muttered affectionately, "better have a spare up his ass for this one."

"He'll be fine," said Sam with more confidence than he felt – Dean was usually the one giving pep talks. Dean _had_ to be okay, otherwise everything else would go wrong too.

Bobby gave him one last nod and a hug as Sam dropped him off. On the way back, he checked in with the hospital. Things were not looking good. His heart sank.

With the room to himself, Sam could finally make a much-needed call. He paced restlessly across the room as the phone rang.

"Cas, what the hell?" he said without preamble when the angel picked up, more harshly than expected. He still hadn't recovered from the blow of hearing that Dean was getting worse. "I know you were going to talk to the angels, but like that?"

"I'm a pariah among the Host," Castiel said bitterly, "and it took a prophet's drunken stumbles to get an angel anywhere near me without it coming to blows. I didn't have any options left, Sam."

Sam heard a click and checked his phone. Cas had hung up on him. He called back.

"What was that?" he asked.

"I need to keep moving," Castiel yelled, trying to be heard over violent winds. "I'm being followed."

His voice cut off abruptly again. Sam seethed and stubbornly pressed the 'Call' button.

"I thought angels were the last resort. You really think it's that bad that they needed to know? And in front of Dean? Wasn't there a better way?" Sam clenched his teeth. He knew Castiel wasn't entirely in the wrong; this was a plan they'd discussed and green-lighted, if reluctantly. Nevertheless, he couldn't help but feel frustrated at how its unannounced implementation had made it impossible for him to be with his brother right now.

"Better way? There was no other way!" Castiel shouted, drowning out the drumbeats and chatter on his end. "Dean's marked for Hell." Sam tightened his jaw. He hadn't wanted to believe what the demon who they'd forced to lead them to Pestilence had said about the virus. Cas would've known if it have been lying. "Only angelic interference can heal him now, unless I can find God."

"Yeah, well," mumbled Sam, "he's still pissed at you… uh, Dean, that is, not God. May wanna call and explain, once he's in any shape to answer."

The conversation cut off again, but this time, Cas was the one to pick it up again. Sam jumped when he heard 'Angel in the Centrefold'. Even when Dean wasn't there, he found ways to prank him. Getting him back, when he couldn't even go near him, would take some work, but he couldn't let the sun go down on this one. Dean deserved better than that.

A foghorn sounded in the background. "Dean has forgiven me." Castiel didn't seem too confident about it.

"Dean always does," Sam said, speaking from experience. It had probably developed in response to Dad's unforgiving nature. "Doesn't mean he won't bitch about it."

"Explanations can wait," he growled impatiently, "until he regains his health. Why did you call, Sam?"

Sheesh, even his answer wasn't worth staying on the line for? Sam doggedly reconnected, starting another round of phone tag.

"I checked with the hospital," he said. "Dean has a huge fever now, and thanks to you, I can't be with him."

Castiel hesitated. Sam could hear the chant of Muslim prayers being broadcast from wherever he was.

"How high is this fever?" he asked.

"Hundred and three?" Dean was probably singing into his pudding cup about being hot-blooded.

Or not, according to Cas – "Dean's not likely to be lucid."

Sam stared at the silent phone contemplatively.

"I promised him I'd stay away," he pointed out upon callback.

"Is there not a saying, 'what you don't know won't hurt you'?"

_Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs, boy,_ Bobby would say in response to Cas's question. Getting advice as an adage, from an angel, was just weird. Particularly considering the likelihood that it had, indirectly, come from Dean at some point.

Sam called back.

"I can do this all night," he said.

"I _have_ to do this all night," Cas returned wearily, and the rush of ensuing guilt made Sam decide to keep it brief.

"What do we do if..."

The call terminated before he could finish, not that he would've been able to anyway. Reestablishing contact, he gulped, willing himself to be able to finish the question.

"What if Dean doesn't make it?" he said in a rush.

Monkeys screeched on the other end. Sam could imagine Cas perched unconcernedly a hundred feet up an Amazonian tree.

"Keep fighting," said Castiel, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Given his former occupation, Sam supposed it was. "You must continue to spurn Lucifer's advances."

Sam thought of how Dean would've reacted to that sentence, all "Ew, that makes me sound like a chick!"

"On the off chance that Dean dies," he said, channeling his brother's inappropriate humour for the occasion, "he's gonna be such a bitch to put up with when he gets back." Because he'd have to come back, right?

"I'm aware," said Cas, deadly solemn. "I've put him back together before. I'd prefer not to do it again. I don't think I'd be capable of it."

He hung up and left Sam staring at the phone. Right, jokes to rally the troops were wasted on angels. He liked to think Bobby would've appreciated it. Sam made a note to tell Dean that Cas saw him as Humpty Dumpty. His brother would get a kick out of that.

He paced.

Music filled the room again. He picked up.

"If anyone calls you," said Castiel, "phone them back right away. The angels may try to deceive you with others' voices." He hung up.

Angels were downers. His hand, operating out of habit, grabbed for the half-empty bottle of Jack's on the table. Sam stared at it. He hadn't reached out for alcohol like that since Dean's death. Dean's most recent death, anyway.

His phone beeped again with a "_?_" from Cas, however he'd picked up texting. It took a while for Sam to figure out what it meant, but even once he did, he wasn't about to phone Castiel back.

"_Yes I get it will call back once there's news good luck_," he sent.

Now, either he could sit here and adhere to Dean's promise while drinking himself into a nail-biting stupor, or he could sneak past the hospital staff and visit Dean.

The choice was easy. He grabbed the keys to the Impala along with Dad's journal and bounded towards the parking lot before spinning on his heel and turning back.

He reclaimed the bottle and took a few swigs first.

One for the road.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

It was too late for them to still be there, way too damn late. Not that, Chase suspected, House or Foreman had much to get to, but he personally was very desirous to make off with his lovely wife and fall into bed, followed by a long, fulfilling night - and morning - of _sleep_. Allison was holding her head up in a way that suggested she was of like mind. There'd been a face mask on their On-Call Room door again, so they hadn't even been able to duck out for a quick nap.

"Have we ever been here this long before?" he asked Cameron quietly.

"We must have," she yawned, "but I don't remember."

"Latest CT doesn't look good," Foreman reported, leg jittering up and down from too much caffeine. "The tissue around many of his organs is becoming necrotic."

"Between that, the bruising, and the bone deterioration, it's like he's just falling apart." Cameron rubbed her eyes; her contacts must be bothering her after being in all day. Chase squeezed her other hand under the table.

"None of that unless you're willing to share," said House, and Chase jumped. How did he always know? Chase slid his foot closer to Cameron's and nudged it, just to see if House would notice, but his boss was staring off into the distance. "'Just falling apart'," he repeated scornfully. "Animal sacrifice cults. Those really the best you can come up with? I think you three are getting complacent."

"No," Chase corrected him, "we're getting _exhausted_."

Foreman nodded in agreement and chugged another of the row of espressos in front of him. Chase stared at them longingly. Why didn't espresso places deliver? It just wasn't fair. He wasn't sure how Foreman had gotten them (although he was sure a nurse was involved), nor did he know why his co-worker wasn't sharing, but damn was he jealous right now. He wondered if Foreman would trade one of them in exchange for a ride home. At this point, it didn't seem like Foreman would be able to _walk_, let alone operate heavy machinery.

He tried to keep his head up for whatever House said next, but his brain was winding down and he couldn't help but let himself slouch a little. He was just dreaming about 13 coming to work with them when he got splashed with cold water.

He gasped and sputtered. "What was that for!" he exclaimed. He wiped his face and hair off on his lab coat. Cameron's bangs were dripping, but she didn't appear to notice.

"You were falling asleep," said House, "and you missed my exciting news. The former I could conceivably let pass, but not the latter."

"Fine. What was your exciting news?"

"Well, since I'm not convinced that my team is bothering, I've decided we need to have a competition."

"What's the prize?" Foreman asked suspiciously.

"Yeah," said Cameron.

"Oh, it's a doozy," promised House. "The next time I notice something I want to question you about... I won't." He looked around the table to catch their reactions. No one's expression had changed. "So when Cameron and Chase start fighting over getting a cat and eventually have a baby instead, one of them won't have to hear from me about it. When Foreman... my God, what _do_ you do?"

"Thirteen," Chase said before realising it; his brain-to-mouth filter wasn't operating so well right now. Judging by the kick he got under the table, he was never going to get one of the espressos now. His posture sagged.

"When I hire her back-"

"I thought that was just a dream! She's coming back?"

"Dreaming about her? Kinky. Yeah, I'm bound to get tired of you guys eventually. When I hire 13 back and she and Foreman circle each other for days, only she will suffer my full curiosity. That is, if he wins."

Everyone woke up a little when it struck them how appreciated the lack of scrutiny would be.

"Wait," said Chase, "so if you redo the team, it would have 14 on it, well, what about us?"

"Not like Foreman has anywhere else to go," said House equably.

"So what do we have to do this time?" Foreman asked through gritted teeth.

"First, Chase has to give me his _Supernatural_ books."

"Done," said Chase, shrugging. The motion shook a little more water off him. "I don't really think they're all that-"

House cut him off with a threatening gesture of the bottle. "Uh-uh! Not a word against them. They're so awful they're fantastic. If I wasn't in withdrawal right now, there would be no prize at all. So - I want you to put those 'caring' skills to work and find out everything you can about the patient."

Chase snorted. Fat lot of good that would prove.

"We've done that already," said Cameron. "Several times."

"Oh, I don't expect it to be _true_," House said. "His real life is awful. The tales he spins, though..."

"What if we just make something up?" asked Foreman. "How're you going to know?"

"It'll probably lack that certain flavour of crazy. Besides, it's not like any of you have any imagination to speak of. Your comebacks would be a lot better if you did."

Chase felt insulted. He did a mean karaoke performance, and Allison made fantastic scrapbooks. Foreman... well, he was sure his fantasies about being in charge of a hospital were rich with detail.

"You're our boss," he pointed out in their defence. "We're supposed to let you have the upper hand conversationally."

"Not convinced," said House. "You seem to try every now and then, and still fail."

Foreman smirked. "You really think I would let anyone speak to me the way you do if I wasn't working for them?"

"Course not. You'd smack a bitch up." Foreman opened his mouth as if to say something but chose to down another espresso instead. "All right then, I'm ready. Hit me with your best shot."

It was one of those moments you dream of, thought Chase, and plan out perfectly. Unfortunately, they were all too close to dream state themselves to remember any such plans. They passed an increasingly panicked series of looks between them.

"I'm waiting," sang House.

"You're a yobbo," Chase blurted in desperation, though it didn't even fit, it was just the first insult that came to mind.

House raised a brow. Cameron's jaw dropped. Foreman blinked, dumbfounded, and didn't seem to be able to stop, lids fluttering frantically. Chase wondered if he should do something to stop it - in exchange for one of those little cups of liquid gold, of course.

"I don't know what that means, o foreign one," said House.

"Exactly," Chase said with as much smugness as he could muster, taking refuge in unfamiliarity. He hoped against hope that House would forget to look it up; he'd be laughed out of the office.

Everyone was a little lost for words after that, and would have fallen asleep (except for Foreman, of course) if not for House's timely smack of the patient's file on the desk. Foreman jumped about a foot in the air and didn't seem to make it particularly far back down.

"Aren't you going to get started then?" asked House.

"Let me get this straight," said Cameron. "You want us to snoop around the patient and report anything interesting back to you?"

House nodded and leaned back in his chair, staring at them expectantly.

"Yeah?" Chase asked, since House didn't seem about to say anything.

"Oh, I was just expecting someone to yell out, 'That's unethical! We should be treating him!' No?" House shook his head mournfully. "You guys are no fun anymore. So who's going to go and get the head start?"

"I did it last time," said Cameron.

"And I did it before that," said Chase. They turned to Foreman, who shot up, shaky and grumbly, and knocked over his chair.

"Actually, I don't trust you around needles right now," House told him. "I guess it's going to have to be beauty over brawn."

Chase and Cameron exchanged a silent conference trying to figure it out. Course, House always meant his words in the most offensive way they could be construed.

"Fine," Chase said, sighing. "I'll do it."

He walked through the halls on auto-pilot, closing his eyes for several paces at a time. It ended up being the wrong method to follow because it led him not to the room with the ice bath, but the patient's actual room in the ICU.

"Damn," he muttered, but he caught movement in the room and turned on the light.

Sam was huddled as if in prayer, on his knees with head laid upon the bed. He looked up as Chase entered, face flushed and tear-streaked.

"Dean's not here," he said, voice vulnerable like a lost child's. "Did something happen?"

As Chase got closer, he caught the scent of alcohol so strongly you could light a flame off it. He coughed.

"Have you been drinking?" he asked. He probably didn't want to know how Sam had gotten to the hospital.

Sam blinked tearily but couldn't quite focus on him. "I have to see him. Where's Dean?" He raised himself slowly, slanting more and more the further off the ground he got. Chase didn't think he'd be able to trust his balance if he got any higher, and there was still lots of height left to go.

"Sam," Chase said, reaching for him and pulling him into sitting on the bed. "Sam!" He had to grab the larger man in place to get him to listen. "We took your brother to get an ice bath. He's just a few rooms down."

Sam slumped.

"I'm not supposed to be here," he confided. "I promised I wouldn't come."

Chase didn't know what to say to that. He knew he'd been justified in his earlier advice to the brothers to separate and let them have their own lives, but that didn't stop him from feeling bad, at least a little, over how it had turned out. Dean had gone too far in implementing his advice – which he should have expected – and now they were both miserable.

"Why don't you come with me and get a coffee," he suggested. "I can update you on your brother's condition."

"But is he alone right now?" slurred Sam. The tone he took on when drunk was surprisingly youthful. "He never tells anyone when it hurts. You have to watch him."

"What kind of hospital would we be if we didn't?"

Sam shook his head. "You don't know what to look for. I gotta see him. I'll make sure."

"Okay," Chase said to placate him, "I'll take you to him, but let's get you a coffee first, huh?"

"I guess," said Sam. Chase stood poised to catch him if he fell, but despite a stumble getting up and an unsteady gait, he seemed ambulatory enough. At least, until he leaned to the side.

"Oof!" Chase had to will his knees to unbend. His shoulder was going to be sore tomorrow. He dragged himself forward to the other room, Sam leaning heavily on him the whole way.

"I'm not supposed to be here," Sam whispered in his ear.

"You're telling me," muttered Chase, "I haven't stopped working in fifty hours. Did you know it's after visiting hours and you're drunk?"

"I _am_ drunk," Sam agreed readily. "Did you know you're wet?"

Chase clenched a fist. "It would be hard not to." Once they got their coffee, they couldn't get to the room fast enough for him.

Upon seeing his brother, Sam freed Chase from his weighty prison. He bounded unsteadily towards Dean, falling onto the rim of the tub. Chase winced in sympathy, but Sam didn't seem to notice the discomfort of his position.

Chase circled the tub, checking on the ice bath and Dean's temperature. It was going down, at least; another few hours and they could probably pull him out. He didn't like the mottling that continued to form on Dean's jaundiced skin, and how the bones seemed more fragile each time he saw him. Dean didn't respond to them at first, but Sam caught his notice eventually.

"Sammy?" Dean said hoarsely. He raised glazed, unfocused eyes and reached out an arm, which Sam all but fell into. To Chase's surprise, he pressed a sweaty kiss to his brother's forehead, holding him tight.

"He's not usually like this," Sam said, just as stunned. He patted his brother on the back. "I'm here, Dean."

"Remember, we fell on the stairs," mumbled Dean. "Tell them I'm your guardian."

Chase felt troubled. He shouldn't be there, and the brothers, if they had all their facilities about them, wouldn't want him there either. House's challenge meant that his boss would want to hear about it, though. Chase was still checking Dean's vitals, a hand to his wrist. He couldn't go yet. He kept losing count, anyway. Lack of sleep did not improve multitasking, and the task at the forefront right now was eavesdropping.

"That was fifteen, sixteen years ago," said Sam, confused.

Here, he could at least be of assistance. "Dean's fever is making him delirious," he explained. "He might not be aware of his surroundings as they are here; it might be another time or place to him."

"Oh my God," Sam gasped, horrified. "Is there anything you can do so he doesn't have to?"

Chase frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Dean's had a rough few years lately. If he has to go through them again..."

House had said that he'd probably had an awful life. Chase scanned Dean's chart and shook his head.

"Sorry, Sam. There's nothing I can do. It's a thin line between ruining his liver and getting the drugs to cure him right now. Look," he added, trying to reason away Sam's concern, "there's nothing to say that's what's happening with him right now."

"He thinks I'm a kid!" exclaimed Sam. "I think we can be pretty sure."

Chase had to admit, if just to himself, that Sam was probably right.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, "I can't give him anything. He seems to know that you're here, though; why don't you see what you can do to help him?"

"I can do that."

"All right," said Chase, ready to leave. He hesitated. Much as his bed was calling out to him, he really couldn't leave Sam here like this indefinitely. Perhaps he could make up for having listened in on him and Dean for House. "I'm going to send someone in to check on you every so often. When you want to leave, let them know and they'll call a cab for you, okay? I don't know how you got here – don't tell me – but you should have someone else take you back."

He was such a hypocrite to say it, when he could barely stay upright and was going to be driving back himself, but Sam didn't need to know about that. He stifled a yawn to make sure Sam didn't find out, either.

"Okay," said Sam. "Dean probably likes it more if I keep his car here, anyway."

Allison was waiting for him outside the room, which was a relief. He definitely didn't remember the combination for his locker.

"You ready to go?" she asked.

He swept her into a kiss. She tasted like tea and aspartame. "Am I ever!"

* * *

There was someone in his room. Dean struggled to open his eyes, to wake up and maybe attack, but the first step alone seemed beyond him. Through his closed eyelids he could see flashes of lightning. Cool fingers brushed against his sweaty forehead and his eyes shot open.

He blinked, kept blinking, but the silhouette before him didn't go away. He started breathing again.

"Adam."

But of course it wouldn't really be, it would be another ghoul or shapeshifter, although it couldn't be a shapeshifter, but there would be something it could be, and that would be what it was. Where was the silver when you needed it?

"Christo," he croaked.

The thing in Adam shook its head. "Invoking that name fills me with love, not hatred," it said in a remote voice that suddenly made it all make sense. The last time he'd heard that tone it had been coming out of young Dad. Now it was somewhere even more extreme.

"Michael."

"You know you can't go on like this, Dean, you're nearly gone. _I_ can't let you go on like this. Are you ready to have me?"

"No."

Michael's lips thinned, and suddenly all of Dean's aches and pains were magnified. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to hold it all in, hoping that if he didn't move it wouldn't get worse.

"What did you do?" he rasped, and oh every word hurt. Tears started to prickle in the corners of his eyes.

"You thought I would inflict pain upon you like the others? No, Dean. But I need you pure as I can get you. I took the drugs out."

"I liked them where they were, thanks."

"It is hard to have such a recalcitrant vessel."

"Yeah, speaking of vessels, what are you doing with Adam? He was fine where he was, dammit!"

Michael stared at him through his half-brother's eyes, the ones he'd never seen Adam looking through. "He was willing to help, with the right incentive. I brought him back."

"And that's what you're going to do to me, too," spat Dean. "Lucifer told Sam that if he died, he'd only be brought back. How is this any different?"

"I'm not waiting for you to die, am I? I'll lift your suffering now. Although," Michael continued, moving closer, "I would caution you against your foolish insistence on dying. Once in Hell, you are under Lucifer's domain, not ours."

Dean laughed from nervousness, sending waves of pain through a splintering rib. "So am I still not out of the Hell deal yet, or am I just 'destined', as you angels like to say, to always go back?"

Michael stared at him implacably. "You know what you would have to do – and so does Peter."

Dean almost offered to kick St. Peter's ass. "So my choices are hell or you? Even if that sends me into Lucifer's clutches?"

"He too knows what is fated. Rest assured your role as my sword would still fall to you."

They say when you are about to die, your life flashes before you. That had never happened to Dean, but now, as he prepared to be healed, all the deaths he could've had flashed before his eyes. There were a heck of a lot of them, almost all of them painful, but any one of them would have been preferable to any of the ones that seemed to lie before him.

"If you know I'm here, you probably know where the others are by now. What about them?"

Michael shrugged, though he wasn't very good at it. "They are not my vessel."

"But I _am_, and I need them, so why don't you get your buddies to back the hell off us with the hard sell already?"

"Done," said Michael, sounding a little bored. "I don't know what the others are bothering with. There will come a time when there's no other recourse ahead of you but to say yes. I look forward to it, but I can wait."

"Good thing it's not today," said Dean. "You'll be waiting a long time, just so you know. All-righty then. Hit me with your best shot." _Fire away_, his mind continued, and he let out an exhalation of unamused laughter.

Michael lifted his hand to Dean's forehead and they looked at each other for a moment. A glow surrounded them.

The last thing Dean heard was the rumbling of thunder.

* * *

For most people, not being able to turn on a light was a slight annoyance that needed fixing. Lisa Cuddy knew it could mean the difference between life and death for a number of people. She took blackouts seriously because she had to. Something _always_ went wrong on backup power.

So when she woke up to the ground rumbling and realised neither phone service nor streetlights were working, she went into a bit of a panic. She _knew_ she should have insisted on a nanny that lived in the house. As it was, she stubbed her toe on Rachel's crib, defeating the purpose of tiptoeing in, and had to bundle a screeching toddler into a carseat with only the SUV door light to see by. She nearly tripped over its charging cord - hybrid had _seemed_ like a good idea at the time - sending half the boxes in her garage flying as she grabbed onto them for balance.

"I'm so sorry, baby," she fretted, driving as fast as she dared with Rachel next to her. Good thing there weren't too many people up at this time, or the roads would be absolute chaos. That factory explosion had screwed things up enough as it was. "Mommy just needs to make sure everyone's good, then we can get you back to beddy-bye." If House could hear her right now! The thought of what he might say brought a slight smile to her face, even amidst the chaos. He was probably the only person who could look in that adorable little face and not lapse into baby talk.

She began to feel even worse about the situation the more she thought about it, and the closer she got to campus. Her GPS kept going in and out, and anything that could take out not just power but GPS and phone service was serious.

Nothing, however, could have prepared her for what had happened to Princeton itself. If someone had been behind her, she would've definitely had a collision to deal with as she screeched to a halt at the sight.

"What the-?" she breathed as Rachel wailed in protest at the jerky stop.

Every building, every street light, had the glass completely blown out of it. The bedraggled remains of a bird, head exploded, lay on the sidewalk next to the road.

_Dean Winchester is dead_ was the first thought that came to mind to explain it. He'd been on the brink last night and everyone involved had known it, hadn't been able to do much about it. She had been given one task to do, cure him, and she had failed. Failed _God_. Cuddy wasn't a woman used to failure, but this had to be the worst possible way to do it. She sunk her head against the steering wheel. The wrath that had followed had probably destroyed the hospital, if the blast had struck this far. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.

Really, what did one do after something like this? Lie down and wait for judgement to be wrought?

Rachel cried for "num-num" and Cuddy straightened. What she would do was feed her daughter.

The time it took to feed Rachel let Cuddy steel her nerves enough to head towards the hospital. She had to prepare herself to sacrifice her tires to do so, but what good was an SUV that couldn't be driven through a road of broken glass anyway? Hopefully she wouldn't have to find out.

She took a circuitous route to avoid as much debris as possible, not even touching the accelerator. The tires crunched sickeningly against the shards scattered over the road.

She was conscious of Rachel's presence the whole time, and not just because Rachel had yet to quiet after being displaced the way she had. The moment it seemed too unsafe, Cuddy resolved, they were turning back. The fear of what could happen to Rachel overpowered her anxiety over the hospital's fate, and the latter had already been proven to be nothing good. There were already helicopters hovering, and she could swear she saw a tank rolling across the football field.

It finally occurred to her to check for other signs of life. Her satellite radio hadn't been coming in, so she focused on local stations. She regretted doing so almost immediately as a squeal echoed through the car.

Never had Cuddy felt more afraid. All contact except face-to-face had just been cut off. If this was a divine undertaking because of her screwing up, her fate must be inconceivably terrible.

You didn't hear about people turning into pillars of salt nowadays, she reasoned, or their cities being annihilated by Heaven. Surely that meant she was safe from something like that?

That line of thought quickly turned sour when she realised that you didn't hear about people being visited by angels and given missions from God, either. She started to tremble.

Her terror mounted as she caught sight of the hospital grounds. The parking garage had completely collapsed in on itself and all the trees were completely uprooted and on their sides. She was stopped in the middle of what was left of the parking lot by a soldier. Torn, she looked back and forth between him and Rachel.

"Sorry, Rach," she said, unclipping her. "Can't leave you alone here, bunny."

She climbed out of the car with Rachel in her arms. The soldier was not impressed.

"That baby better be dying for you to come here," he barked. "No one gets past this line."

Cuddy hugged Rachel to her protectively. "She's perfectly fine!" she said indignantly. "I'm Dr. Cuddy, the Dean of the hospital. I had to come and check. I thought it was just an outage. I had no idea it would be..." She gestured at the shell of a building in front of her. "...this."

The soldier glared. "Next time, wake up a neighbour," he said. "Hospital's no place to bring a child."

Cuddy felt irritation flare up and indulged it. It was either that or fall to the ground in knee-knocking fright.

"Who are you to tell me how to raise my child?" she snapped. "Now, _I_ am the boss at this hospital, and I need to talk to whoever has taken charge here!"

"Yes, ma'am." The soldier saluted her, which was kind of gratifying, she'd admit. She opened the door of her SUV and sat on the step.

"Bed," demanded Rachel.

"I know, baby," Cuddy said soothingly. She rocked Rachel as they waited. Soon, she spotted two figures moving towards them. As they got closer, she could make them out better: a grizzled man with dark grey hair and a small woman with hair that shone red like a beacon.

"Chief Girardi," said the man as they approached, "Will. I'd shake, but I see you've got your hands full. Got three of my own."

"General Beckman, National Security Agency," said the woman in a clipped tone that made Cuddy wonder whether she was supposed to salute her. She allowed herself the slight satisfaction of finding another woman at the top before introducing herself to them. She was conscious of the contrast between Beckman's perfect coif and her own snarled curls, pulled back into a ponytail that Rachel was investigating to the fullest extent.

She introduced herself and added, "And, uh, this is Rachel. I'm not usually this... informal, I swear, I thought I'd just be getting people to dust stuff off from the basement. This is a complete disaster zone! Does anyone know what happened?" An icy chill crept into her heart that somehow everyone would _know_ that there was a reason behind the catastrophe.

_And that reason is you_, she told herself. She just hoped House would be safe. She'd dragged him into it, knowing how big it was, without letting him know what he was getting into. It would be unfair to hold him accountable for what was going on.

"I got Forensics on it," said the Chief, "and the General has a bomb squad here to investigate too."

"Our surveillance managed to pick up that there was a commotion of some sort but picked up nothing beyond that," added General Beckman, her face pinched tight with censure. "Actually, it measured off the charts in every way, up to the point where it blew millions of dollars worth of instruments. We came to see for ourselves when we couldn't reach our on-the-ground operatives. You could say that the hospital is Ground Zero."

"Best guess so far, based on the damage, is some supersonic thing. We think we have it traced to ICU." Cuddy froze. That's where Dean was (had been?). Girardi shook his head. "Couple of staff there said - wrote, really - they saw a flare coming out into the hallway, heard a loud noise, and... well, they're not seeing or hearing any more. Eyes burnt out and eardrums burst. You'd understand it better than I would, doctor."

"We understand you've had several tremors in the area lately with similar effect?" questioned Beckman.

Cuddy nodded in answer to Beckman and breathed a sigh of relief. She'd forgotten about that; so it had started even during the time when the patient was confirmed to be alive. She wasn't so silly to think that the disturbances had nothing to do with his presence at the hospital, not knowing what she knew, but maybe there was some hope and the universe wasn't just out to punish her.

"I have to go in there," she said, "I need to see what's going on, but-" she squeezed Rachel- "I can't yet. I don't think my nanny will even come in today."

"Find someone to look after her and come back," said Beckman. "We're clearing a route that you can come back by."

She went through prospects in her head. Until she adopted, she had never realised how hard it was to make friends within the city. Asking people to babysit for her had proved the ultimate test. Her mind skipped to what needed to be done for the hospital, delegating automatically.

"Do you want any help here?" she asked. "I can stop by some of the division heads - janitorial, hospitality - to keep them from sending staff in, but you're going to need more medical backup."

"The more skilled help you can get, the better," said Girardi. "The streets are going to fill up soon, and then no one's moving anywhere for a few hours."

"Our first step is to get the patients out," said Beckman. "My people are working on that now; we need them out to comb the building and do the necessary cleanup."

The list of things she needed to do was growing exponentially. Without phones working, she sensed she might have a lot of driving ahead of her. At least her tank was full.

"There's a patient of mine that needs checking on," she said before she left. "VIP, very special case. I don't want anyone except medical personnel getting near him because he needs very careful handling." And because the police were already after him, but she tried to infuse her voice with as much medical confidence as she could. She drew out a map of the hospital for them, as much as she could, and pointed out his room.

"His room's along that corridor," Girardi observed. It was as she had suspected. "Someone may have looked at him already. We'd better get on this quick."

Once safe in the knowledge that someone could resolve the Dean situation, her first move was to head to Wilson's.

"So," she said, a huge desperate smile on her face, "you remember Rachel, right?"

He rubbed his bleary eyes.

"I want a raise," he said.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**

When Peter Petrelli felt the shockwaves that shook his city, saw the lights extinguished and heard the panicked radio reports about an unreachable New Jersey, he knew he had to get to the bottom of it. His recent run-in with someone who could shake the earth had given him a suspicion of major catastrophes. He called around a few of his acquaintances from the past few years and found them just as clueless.

If this was someone with powers, things could get even worse. Road access had been cut off for the most part, but he found himself a place on a bus crammed with relief workers.

He sat up front to question the bus driver, but she was in the Reserves and didn't know much more than he did. The woman next to him was on the phone, so he waited while she finished her conversation.

"Yeah, I found out a little bit," she said in response to Peter's inquiries once she hung up. "My eldest wouldn't let me leave 'til I promised to find out what the problem was. Jackie Collins." They shook hands.

"Peter," he said, omitting his last name on purpose. With his brother having been a Congressman, too many awkward questions always came up. "What happened?"

"Earthquakes set off some sort of subsonic boom around Princeton, they're thinking."

The only person who he knew with that sort of power had been at the hospital with him, just as confused about the situation. He couldn't discount the involvement of time travel, of course, but his gut was telling him this wasn't the case.

"So the university hospital..."

A shake of her blonde head. "Wrecked. That's where they're sending us first."

He nodded. "Have they managed to make remote contact yet, do you know? I heard you can't phone in, radio, nothing."

"I called home at the right time, then." Jackie pulled out her phone and checked it. Peter did the same and made a face. He was out of service. "Losing reception already. Wait..." She dug into the pocket of her scrubs and flipped open another phone. "Nope. I have to let people know I won't be reachable. Excuse me."

Peter looked through the window at the sky, grey and innocuous. He'd sort of expected more from the weather on a day like this one. Army helicopters were circling.

He wondered if Sylar had anything to do with this.

The whole journey had a surreal feeling to it; while the highway they were on was deserted, most of the roads they passed were jammed with cars blaring their horns. The closer they got, the more prevalent the sound of police on loudspeakers, struggling for control of the crowds. They stopped at several checkpoints before they made it to the Plainsboro campus. Broken glass and debris on the roads had been pushed to the sides as if they were snow.

Peter couldn't see any clear sign of anyone with powers being involved, though he wasn't sure what to look for. Power-dar would've come in handy right now.

He was the first worker out of the bus, which was how he ended up assigned to the Very Important Patient caught in the heart of the blast. What he found there raised more questions than it answered.

This room was actually clear of glass, unlike the others around it, although its television had burst just like the others. Someone had been here before him, then. The patient was sprawled across the bed, an arm hanging off each side, insensible to his surroundings.

He scrutinised the patient's chart, then bent to check the patient's injuries. "Oh my God," he said.

* * *

Dean was thirsty. Hungry, too. It occurred to him he'd felt that way for a while, that he just kept forgetting. He felt sluggish, like he hadn't slept in a week, and it made it difficult to stay focussed. Trying to get up, he found himself handcuffed into place.

He moved in protest, trying to get a better look at the setup, but it was too difficult, like moving through molasses. It kept feeling like he should just give in, wait and see what would happen next, but there was still one piece of the puzzle missing, a piece he couldn't do without.

"Sammy?" he called.

Some time later, he noticed that he hadn't gotten an answer. He thought he should be anxious but couldn't summon the necessary feeling.

He dragged his eyes over his surroundings. It took constant reminders to himself to motivate him to keep going.

Things seemed the same from what he could last remember, other than the cuffs. He turned his inspection on himself. There were bandages on his wrists, starting to bleed through, and an IV in his arm.

IV... still thirsty... handcuffs... bandages... no pain.

One by one, the pieces clicked together in his head.

He inched himself, mouth at the ready, towards his forearm until he could pull the IV out. So maybe there was still pain. Spent from the effort, he remained leaning over himself until his head cleared.

When his mind started flowing more smoothly, he sat up, not proud of how long it had taken him to get himself together. Dad would've lectured him for days.

To be honest, he wasn't positive he was alive.

The sad thing was that it didn't matter, did it? He wasn't going to get a chance to rest either way; he had to figure this out, fight his way through. Now that he could observe things properly, he could see that he was in a completely different room than where he'd encountered Michael. There were no windows here except a small opening on the door. It made it hard to tell how much time had passed.

Mirroring the bandages on his wrists were ones on his ankles, also currently wet. If not for those, he would've assumed the upper ones were just to protect him from the cuffs. With all limbs involved, the wounds were a mystery to him. What, had Michael conned him into vesselling up just to go skateboarding then dump him here?

If Dean was a betting man – and he was – he'd have to go with 'dead', really. At the very least, he was imprisoned. He'd expected to be able to wake up where he was and walk out, no problem. He should've realised how far you could trust an angel. Even Castiel had revealed them to Raphael when the archangel had come to protect Chuck. Had that been the day before yesterday? It felt very long ago now.

IV still clenched in his teeth, he yanked it with a bob of his head, needing to see what had been slowing him down. The fluid dribbled onto his papery gown.

The label on the bag read 'Thorazine'. He didn't know what that was, but he knew it definitely wasn't a painkiller. He knew those like the back of his hand. Now that it wasn't in him as much, he was starting to feel something again: _annoyed_.

"So' o' a bi'h," he managed to get out through the tube he was holding in his mouth. Why was that still in there? He prepared to spit it out but clamped down right after. Apparently, his instincts had come back ahead of the rest of him; equipped with the needle, he might have a chance at picking the handcuffs. It wasn't the tool he would've chosen for himself, or even one that he was sure would work, but it was a start. He had to try something at this point; the need to take a piss was getting to him.

He bent over his arm again as he got to work, his thoughts set on arming his arsenal of crushing insults for the next time he saw Michael.

* * *

House sympathised with a certain New Jersey convenience store clerk as he approached the hospital because, really, he _wasn't_ even supposed to be there today. Not like this, anyway. Whenever the elevators had been out of service on an issue unrelated to Cuddy-revenge, the board had always called and told him to stay home. Come to think of it, that had been on visits of state medical reviews, so it may have been Cuddy's doing after all.

He managed to guilt the cop at the entrance into letting him park in the actual parking lot and found a spot next to some police bikes for his motorcycle (not the safest means of travel right now, but it bypassed the insane traffic). The sorry sight the hospital made was enough to tell him he'd done the right thing by coming. Cuddy was probably off the walls by now over the state of her beloved hospital.

If he didn't get suckered into helping, he could probably be home by this afternoon. He'd put off going home as long as he could the night before, and his last impression of the patient's condition, once he'd gotten his janitorial allies to throw out the brother, had been sink-or-swim. Now, even if the fever had broken, topping the transplant list wouldn't matter, not in this kind of emergency state. Transporting an organ took a number of resources that no one had handy right now.

Knowing triage, the patient was a goner, assuming he wasn't already gone. Good riddance, at that... except he remembered the stress Cuddy had put on this case, and the stress he'd envisioned being put on her in return, and he was troubled. Ultimately, that was why he was here.

Dean Winchester was going to get the best damn autopsy he'd ever had (hardly a challenging standard to beat, if everyone kept getting fooled), and House was going to give it to him.

He stopped short next to the hospital entrance. The car parked sedately in the handicapped spot next to tanks and ambulances had been there in that exact position when he'd gone home the night before. He circled it slowly, leaning on it for support. Despite the dust and dirt still flying in the air, the surface remained black and gleaming, complete with the Goliath-sized handprints and smudges of drool he'd snickered at as he left.

The brother must've taken it with him last night, after all. House ducked his head down to get a closer look. The asphalt underneath the car was bare of any debris, unlike the spots the tanks were in. It was as if the car had never left.

There was something very strange going on.

He intercepted the soldier, dressed in black SWAT attire, about to go into the nearest tank.

"Whose car is this?" he asked.

The soldier gave it a once-over. "Must be the Colonel's. He's really into old cars."

He doubted it. "It was here last night."

"Oh," said the soldier in a very different tone. "The Colonel _is_ always the first on the scene. I don't think you're cleared to talk about this, sir. If I could just get you to move aside..." The soldier hurried off.

Perhaps Winchester's criminal identity was only a front for larger-scale work as the otherwise-unnamed Colonel?

House snorted. Cameron had probably been right in pointing out that he'd read too many of those _Supernatural_ books, though he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of telling her.

Well, he didn't know who the Colonel was, but he did know that wasn't his car. The patient's brother must still be in the hospital... and, his mind filled in, taking frequent breaks to clean off his car and parking spot. Unlikely though it sounded, it was the only explanation that came to mind.

It wasn't as he'd put it past their twisted family to have priorities like that.

In the meantime, he was very disappointed in Lou the night janitor. He should've known not to depend on anyone who wore their pants backwards.

The first thing House saw upon entering the hospital was a pair of rubber boots crunching over glass. What he didn't expect to see, as his gaze panned up, was Cuddy wearing them.

"I knew there had to be a reason for that fishy smell," he greeted her. "How do you even _have_ a pair of those?"

"My basement was leaking one year," she said. "House, I'm going to stop you right here. All our patients are being moved; I already sent your team to St Sebastian's."

"And here I was going to catch up on paperwork." He scanned the devastation that was his workplace. "Why here more than anywhere else?"

Cuddy shook her head. "It's not the usual destruction. I talked to some of the night shift. The blackout and... and the glass, I think, all the glass broke-"

"Well, they sure knew which hospital to come to for that."

She crumpled a little. "I just don't _know,_ House."

He reached his hand up, lowered it back down. "You'll figure something out. You've been wanting to get back some of that insurance money for years, right? Maybe it was a jet cruising by at Mach 5, trying to sneak up on that fugitive patient of mine."

Cuddy chuckled unconvincingly, gazing away from him, and House wondered if she'd seen the car too.

"How is my patient, anyway?" he asked.

She gave a miserable little shrug. "That's what I'm waiting to find out. The first relief team just got in and they sent one of them to check him out. I told the cops not to go in, but they won't let anyone but the EMTs into that hallway anyway."

"What?" He tried to move past her, but she blocked him.

"I think he's dead," she whispered. Her face twisted as if the thought pained her deeply. For all he knew, it might.

House shrugged. "I came to do his autopsy."

She grabbed his arm like a lifeline and crowded him against the front desk.

"How did you know?" she hissed. "Did someone send you a message?"

He studied her quizzically. He'd been CCed on Wilson's tox screen of her hair – the most he'd heard from his best friend for days – and it had come back clean, or he'd be suspecting drug usage right now. He took her strange behaviour as stemming from the stress of the situation.

"No messages can get through," he reminded her. She loosened her grip on him. "The circumstances lend themselves pretty well to him being dead. I'm going with the odds here."

He stayed with her to wait on the patient's results as she sent both staff and soldiers flying off to do her bidding. He hoped that someone would have more to say about the car in the parking lot, but no one seemed to know anything more.

A while later, a woman who'd been bossing around some of the other nurses like she owned the place – impressive considering she didn't actually work here – dropped by.

"I need a Dr. Cuddy or a Dr. House," she said.

"All present and accounted for," said House. Cuddy gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles whitened.

"We got a patient from the disaster zone where Dr. Cuddy said he'd be," she reported, "but it's not your patient."

Cuddy closed her eyes. "You're not serious."

"Oh, I wish I wasn't. The paperwork will take you guys hours. See, the chart list a patient with a high viral hemorrhagic fever, stitches to the left palm, surgery for pleural effusion, cause as of yet un–"

"I know that," snapped House impatiently, "he's my patient. Get on with it."

She glared at him with sharp blue eyes. "I find you can never be too sure with doctors," she said bitingly.

Great, a nurse with attitude, everyone's least favourite player in a hospital. It figured. The ones in charge always made it up there through sheer power of bitchiness.

"It's his only patient," blurted Cuddy. "What about the man you found? ... if it was another man."

"Oh, he fits the description on the chart, all right, but that's as far as it goes. No stitches, surgery scar, fever, nothing."

"So what did he have?" House demanded.

"Mutilated at the wrists and ankles, no major blood loss... yet," said the nurse. "EMT thought it was a suicide attempt following the shock of the blast, they're sending him to Psych at Mercy."

Cuddy went slack at the news. He moved closer to support her in case she fell. More than ever, he was convinced that she was in thrall to someone over this case. Sure, the stakes were life or death, but they always were; Cuddy was acting as though the stakes involved her own life.

"Thank you," Cuddy said numbly, "Nurse...?"

"Jackie." Before she went off again, she caught House's attention and flicked her gaze at Cuddy, indicating for him to look after her. He nodded.

"It's him," Cuddy said when the nurse was out of earshot, the instant House said, "It's not him."

He would have argued with her about it over the speciousness of hope as a diagnostic tool, but she was curling in on herself right on the surface of the desk, weeping.

"Hey," he said, steering her towards her office. They picked their way across the sea of glass. He wished that he was capable of lifting her up and carrying her across – not that he would, of course, but the ability to do so would be nice.

There was no privacy inside her office now that the glass walls had shattered, though there hadn't been much to begin with. He pulled Cuddy into her tiny private bathroom. With the porcelain in pieces and the water leaking over the floor, it was an awful place for a breakdown, but the thing about breakdowns was that they rendered you powerless to notice such impositions. House resigned himself to wet shoes and pant legs for the rest of the day. At least Cuddy had those hideous boots.

"God," Cuddy said, and then she collapsed into tears.

This time, House was able to breach the distance between them and hold her.

"You're a good administrator," he said after the majority of her sobs had passed, and he couldn't resist adding, "and I'm a fantastic doctor. We'll solve this case, and you'll fix this hospital. Or flash just the right person and manage to get yourself another one."

She let out a watery laugh and leaned in to him, tucking her head on his chest. He rubbed her back.

"Why are you so upset over this case?" he asked gently, hoping to get a response in this circumstance that he hadn't managed to get in others.

Cuddy pulled back, wiping her eyes. She craned her neck around him to catch a glimpse at the mirror and made a face when she realised it wasn't there anymore.

"You look fine," he told her.

"Yeah right." She grimaced. "I failed with this case," she said. "I _failed_."

"You get stuck bossing me around. It leads to a lot of failure."

"Not like this." She sniffled. "This one was a personal obligation. The responsibility was all mine, and I didn't live up to it."

"I was the one running the case. Do you think I failed?" He held his breath waiting for her answer. He knew what his answer would be to that question.

She shook her head.

"Then you didn't, either." So easy, so pat. His time in therapy must be working wonders.

"It's not that simple," she said wryly.

"I know."

They huddled together again, not acknowledging the moment with words. The next time they separated, House said:

"I think you need to come with me to see the patient you think is the one."

That dragged a surprised laugh out of her. "You want me to leave? _Now?_"

"They managed without you this long. By the time we get back, Bossy Nurse will be posing as Dean anyway. Might as well skip a few steps."

There was an uncertain smile on her face that spoke of many times playing hooky. "I don't know..."

"You're not going to be able to do anything until you figure this out, and it's not fair to make the girls–" he gestured at her chest– "do all the work. Come on."

She followed him to his motorcycle, wiping her face self-consciously along the way.

"Did you call me a bad doctor back there?" she wanted to know as she settled herself behind him. "You said I was a good administrator, but you only mentioned _you_ being any good at doctoring."

Pulling her arms tighter around him, he allowed himself a brief smile as he gunned the motor, drowning out anything else they could say.

* * *

Dean tried calling out for Sam a few times, just in case his brother was looking for him. No luck there. He would've expected his hollering to bring someone over, though. When it didn't, he began to worry again. If this had really been a hospital, someone should've come by already, handcuffs or no handcuffs. The call button might as well've been a toy.

Usually in this kind of situation, he would call Bobby. His phone was in a bag dumped unceremoniously on his bedside table; the sole purpose of its presence seemed to be to taunt him, since it definitely didn't get reception.

He was itching even more to get out of bed and explore. The IV needle had broken before he could get to the cuffs around his ankles, so he was still chained to the bed. Next time someone saw fit to bring him back to life, he wanted Wolverine-style claws made of lock picks. Dean was plenty awesome on his own, but he should totally be the six-million dollar man by now.

All this sucked even more because he was still starving, dammit.

Now that he'd exhausted his go-to options, there was only one thing left to do, and he didn't like it.

"Cas! Get your scrawny ass over here!"

After what must have been _hours_ of yelling similarly-worded summons, Cas popped into the room, tie swaying violently. His clothes lay on him crookedly, making him even more dishevelled than usual.

"What the hell took you so long?" Dean asked irritably.

"I was being followed," said Cas, surveying him intently from head to toe. "You're okay." The rigid set of his shoulders loosened.

Funny that Cas saying it like that was a sign of him changing. Dean wasn't sure what he would've once said – definitely something top-lofty and Biblical like 'and yea, now is Dean Winchester arisen from his convalescence.'

"Am I?" he asked. Cas stared at him all the harder.

"There's nothing wrong with you that I can see," said Cas. "Not physically."

"Great. I'm here, need beer, get used to it," Dean said bleakly, unable to instil much pep into his words. "Aren't you going to break me out of here already? Then we can go find Sammy."

Absently, Cas hooked a finger of each hand under a cuff and pulled it apart. He did the same with the other one and started unwinding the bandages around Dean's ankles.

"Man, we should take you to the circus," said Dean, batting his hands away to do the job himself. "Win all sorts of contests with that superstrength thing."

Cas' mouth quirked up a little. Despite his harried appearance, he seemed more relaxed than usual, more used to being in his skin. He had terrible timing. Dean was raring to leave this stupid room already and get back to real life before the angels tried to brainwash him or something.

"Let me see your injuries," Cas requested, not in any hurry. Dean groaned and gave up on the idea of hustling them out of here; Cas wouldn't budge until he had satisfied his curiosity.

"Gotta say, I'm a little curious myself." He wrinkled his nose at the sight of his ankle. "Or not. Man, that's gross! Thought you said there was nothing wrong with me?"

At the base of his foot was a coin-sized circle where the flesh had worn away, laying bare wet, bloody tissue that threatened to start oozing again.

"That's not 'gross'," Cas breathed in awe, hand hovering over the mark, "nor wrong." Dean yanked his leg away; while Cas might have no boundaries, Dean did not want to be touched inside his skin, thank you very much. "It's the wounds of Christ."

Great. How was he supposed to pick up chicks with freaky stigmata going on? He'd never win that nurse bet now.

"Guess they really wanted to remind me of that 'servant of Heaven' business, huh?" Dean shook his fist at the ceiling. "Mother_fuckers_."

He had spun around and was about to brace himself to be spirited away when House entered, followed by an anxious-looking brunette with a stethoscope tangled around her neck.

His mouth formed in an 'O' at the sight of the doctors, not quite sure what to ask. He'd thought he was in angel prison, after all; was this an illusion?

"Oh, you should see your face," quipped Dr. House after a moment of stunned silence from all of them. Of course he'd be the first to speak. And now he would never shut up. "Yup, as the presence of Dr. Cuddy and myself might suggest, you're in Heaven."

Whipping his head around, he gave Cas a perplexed look. Cas shook his head, but he might be an illusion too. Dean didn't know what to think anymore.

"Guess we had the power all along, Toto," he said, testing him. When Dean got the anticipated head tilt and confused scrunchy face, he calmed down. That was Cas, all right.

"The tornado was a doozy, though," said House. He leaned forward until he was almost nose-to-nose with Dean, who drew back. "You're not in Kansas anymore."

"House!" said Dr. Cuddy. She extended a perfunctory hand to Dean, introducing herself. He studied her. So this was the boss lady House kept harping on about. Hot, in a _Sex in the City_ (hey, Sam was the one with the DVDs, not him) kind of way. Her face was drawn and her eyes and nose red. He supposed it cleared her of being an angel construct, if not of being instructed by them.

"It would be really nice to know what the hell is going on here," he said.

The doctors hesitated, a silent conversation passing between them with a lot of leering on House's part and glaring on Dr. Cuddy's.

That could probably go on forever. Dean interrupted them.

"Look, the last thing I remember is sending my visitors away, and then I wake up drugged up to my eyeballs and chained to some random bed with nasty–" maybe he shouldn't call attention to the stigmata– "service," he finished lamely. "Discharge me, I'll get out of your hair, everyone's happy." If only.

"_Discharge_ you?" House repeated incredulously. "Last night, you were on the brink of dying. Now, you don't even have your surgery scar. You can't leave now."

Dean resisted the urge to look down his hospital gown. "How do you know I don't?"

House raised an eyebrow. "I peeked."

So that was why he'd gotten all creepy with that line about Kansas.

"I've got things to do, I need to get out of here."

"Oh, more murders? Love the work ethic there."

Dean ignored him. "Get Sam?" he pleaded to Cas, who nodded and strode out of the room.

* * *

He was lying in a bed in the Psych Ward of Mercy Hospital, and he – purported only hope of the world – had tried to kill himself that morning. She couldn't even _look_ at him, her resentment at the anguish he'd caused her threatening to bubble over. At least House was out of the room so he wasn't engaging him in another argument.

She hadn't expected Dean Winchester to be like this. From what the angel had said, she'd imagined someone who resembled Chief Girardi instead – older, weary, with an appreciable air of knowledge and experience.

Dean was weary, but he'd been sick, and she didn't doubt for a moment that the two were connected. Every now and then, he had a sudden spark of life in him that more than balanced it out.

When she was little, her mother had read stories of Bible figures to her and her sister; it had been her first understanding of what a hero was. The angel had told her that holy works were being written about Dean and his brother, and she'd assumed he'd be like those Biblical heroes she'd grown up hearing about, mighty and fearsome and sure. She thought he'd have so much presence that he could walk into a room and draw every eye to him.

She forced herself to turn to examine him, and he hurriedly raised his eyes from her chest, but she caught him. He grinned at her sheepishly and she smirked back. Had she seen him on the street, she would've just taken him as someone with more looks and charm than brains... or common sense, for that matter. Never mind one hand not knowing what the other was doing, he wasn't aware of either.

Honestly, humanity's fate was beginning to concern her. She hoped the angels weren't relying on Dean for much more than carrying out their plan.

To be fair, the blast had been a bad one, and it had radiated from his room. He might not be able to help how he was. She flashed a penlight at his eyes, which hadn't gotten burnt like others in that area but still bore traces of dried blood around them, as did his ears. He twisted his head away.

"Don't bother," he groused. "Cas gave me the all-clear. Why'd I get moved again? We'd _just_ put up protection symbols."

"I think you'd be able to explain what happened better than I would," she snapped. Once the awe had faded, she found it tough to keep from being angry not just for the scare he'd given her, but for the fruitlessness of it all. Ultimately, he'd never needed anything from the hospital, and destruction had rained down on it – why, she wasn't sure yet, but she'd bet it involved him. She knew that when she got back to the hospital, there would be an extra row of bodies in the morgue.

"The archangel Michael came to me last night," he said quietly.

"And healed you?" Cuddy prompted when he seemed lost in reverie.

He nodded.

Surely she was missing a step there. "Then why did you try to kill yourself?"

His brow furrowed. "Are you talking metaphorically, 'cause I don't see what you're getting at."

She clung to her last shreds of patience as she asked slowly, "Why did you mutilate your wrists if you had just been healed?"

"Oh." He stared at the bandages on his wrists as if he had forgotten about them being there. "Yeah, that wasn't me. It's stigmata – injuries from Jesus' death, or whatever."

Like she would believe that. "I'm Jewish."

"Then you have something in common with Him, too," said Dean with a cheeky smile. She conceded that perhaps he wasn't as stupid as she'd thought.

She wrapped her hand around his and extended his arm, noting the spot where he had bled through his bandage. "Does it hurt?"

"Nope. Pretty ugly, but I can't really feel it." He shook his arm from her grasp and bounded out of bed. All nervous energy, he stalked the perimeter of the room. She supposed she could see how he might have some ability to lead forces against evil by the way he examined his surroundings, alert and practiced.

"Please tell me," she said, watching him, "that for want of a hospital, the world will be won."

"What do you mean?"

She bit back an exasperated sigh, and he frowned.

There was an edge to his voice as he said, "Stop asking me questions I don't know the answer to and tell me what's going on here, why don't you."

After she shared the whole sordid story of the disasters that had been piling up, he sank back onto the bed, stricken. He rubbed his face furiously, scattering flakes of blood over himself. It disgusted and fascinated her at the same time; it didn't register to him.

"I'm alive," he said, a bit of that hero gravitas she'd been wanting finally making it into his tone, "and it wasn't worth it." He lifted his head towards the ceiling, and she didn't think he was talking to her anymore. "That wasn't a price I was willing to pay."

She recoiled. After everything that had fallen into place trying to keep him alive, he wasn't supposed to _want_ to die. She wanted to pound her fists in his chest, scream at him – what was wrong with him? Why couldn't he be more... heroic and just be _happy_ he was all right?

What she said instead was, "You're telling me that it was an _angel_ that caused all these problems today?"

Avoiding eye contact, he jerked his head in a quick nod.

Whenever things had seemed their lowest in her life, she had always turned to prayer as a source of help and comfort.

Now it seemed that those she had prayed to had turned against her.

Shaking, she got up and left the room without a word to Dean. As he called out to her, she did not look back.

* * *

It should've been the incessant honking in the streets that woke Sam – more dignified, more aware of his surroundings – but nope, it came down to falling off his bed.

"Oof!" He got up in bewilderment, feeling top-heavy to the point of keeling over again. The mattress creaked in protest.

"Wake up," someone said somewhere above him.

Sam prised open an eye. The blurry form at the side of the bed was vaguely beige with dark hair.

"Cas?" he hazarded, voice coming out scratchy.

Confirmation, or so he guessed came in the form of an annoyed huff implying that the last thing Castiel wanted to hear was his name.

"Dude, did you push me off the bed?"

"Yes," said Castiel dismissively, as if going into people's rooms and pushing them off their beds while they were sleeping was a regular thing for him. Sam grumbled indignantly into his pillow. "You need to get up. We have to go."

Sam ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth, trying to get it a little less dry, but it was like licking a road.

"Urgh. Water," he commanded. Not that he was one to order people around because he was hungover, but he wasn't above doing it to delay waking up. Castiel owed him for the way he woke him up to begin with.

His snooze time didn't prove to be worth it, though. The cacophony of honks played a major role, but what it came down to was Sam giving into what was both his greatest strength and weakness and starting to _think_, way too much.

By the time Castiel got back with the water, Sam was tense with worry. Once he'd managed to remember some of the previous night, he couldn't stop imagining everything that could've gone wrong with Dean since he'd stupidly taxied back the night before. It wasn't as if he'd wanted to! He didn't remember exactly how it had happened; if he'd been that far gone, they probably could've just rolled him out the door.

"How's Dean?" he demanded to know.

Cas inclined his head slightly. He had the closest thing Sam had ever seen to a smile on his face.

"Dean has been healed by the power of Heaven."

Oh thank God the angels had come through. "You don't think you could've shared that fi..." They were in yet another hospital room. "...irst?" Sam finished asking. His eyes lighted on his brother, who looked so wonderfully like his usual, familiar self. "Dean!" Sam rushed at him and grabbed him in a hug.

Dean blew a raspberry. "Phew, you stink." His tight grip on Sam seemed to say that he didn't care. "Bitch."

For that, Sam tussled with Dean, aiming to pin him into his armpit.

"Jerk," he said happily and didn't even complain when Dean messed up his hair.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**

"Don't look at me like that!" Wilson whispered to Rachel in response to the doleful pout she was currently sporting.

He was carrying her up the stairs of his apartment building, and Rachel's glumness had him tiptoeing guiltily like some sort of criminal. It was as if she knew the dastardly plan he had concocted. The whole thing was absurd. Wanting to leave Cuddy's daughter behind in the respectable care of the _Nonna_ upstairs to go care for cancer patients was nowhere near reprehensible.

Except, of course, how he was going to go about it.

It had all started when, after staring at each other for fifteen minutes and Wilson grasping for things to say to 'the Cudlet', he'd realised two important things. The first was that he had no idea what to do with a toddler, and thank God for that because otherwise it would've meant he would've had to go through custody battles or treat a preschooler for cancer. The second was that while there was very little he could do to help Rachel, many of his patients would still need procedures like chemo or dialysis and refills today. It wasn't likely that any of them knew what had happened to the hospital, so even for those whose workers managed to make it to them, they'd be going to the wrong place.

He'd considered bringing Rachel with him, he really had - his raise depended on it - but Cuddy had left too quickly to give him the car seat. Thus, he started scheming and crossed his fingers that Mrs. diGregorio might either have a car seat or be willing to be a substitute babysitter. Fingers crossed, House hadn't slammed her opera singing lately. He took a moment to speculate on how his friend was faring over his patient's presumed state of death before he reminded himself that he was miffed with him anyway, so it didn't matter. Even if House did take patient deaths hard.

He prayed House would be okay.

He schooled his face out of remorse and into neighbourly concern and knocked on Mrs. diGregorio's door.

"Hi, Mrs. di.," he said. "I just wanted to check in on you and make sure you were okay. You didn't hurt yourself, did you? I can take a look if you want."

House wasn't the only devious one in their friendship.

Several sutures later, he was on his way to Mercy with a carful of cancer patients. Traffic was crawling along to the point where he could swear they'd be better off walking. At least the ensuing playoffs of "I Spy" and "Never Have I Ever", interspersed with bouts of impromptu sing-alongs, were kind of fun.

He got his patients prioritised on the waitlists and headed off to the ER to find Cuddy working away.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted out. Now he was in for it.

Her eyes widened. "My _baby_," she growled, "what did you do with her?"

He held out his hands in defence. "She's with the upstairs neighbour, Mrs. diGregorio. You know I would have contacted you if I could."

"Don't start with me, Wilson." She was still coming towards him threateningly. "I'm furious enough as it is."

"Um... she's the mother of the D. A.?"

Cuddy stopped. "I'm familiar with him. She's the one with the famous risotto?"

"Yes!" said Wilson, relieved to be off the hook. "House had cook-offs with her for a while, but he quit because he kept losing."

"He's here, you know."

Wilson stiffened. "What? I thought this was the last place he'd be, what with his patient-ow!"

Cuddy had grabbed him by the arm and was yanking him towards the hallway.

"I found out what happened at the hospital and I know you may have doubted me but if this isn't proof I don't know what is." She managed to say it all in one breath. He nodded at her to continue. "House's patient isn't sick anymore."

"He's alive? He can't be out of the woods yet. Yesterday I spotted him in dialysis."

"Oh no, he's completely healed. It's a miracle."

Wilson stopped in his tracks as it dawned on him what she was getting at. "The kind an angel could perform?"

Cuddy's jaw twitched. "Something like that." She forced a smile as several doctors that Wilson didn't recognise rushed past. When he looked at Cuddy again, her face was grim. "The patient tells me that's how everything ended up in crisis mode."

Wilson fumbled for the hallway's handrail and gripped it, drawing from its solidity to determine a way to answer Cuddy judiciously. "So an angel drops by and cures just one patient, but destroys the rest of the campus, cuts off the power and phone lines, and leaves?"

"I don't really know the logistics of it," Cuddy admitted. "Let me put it this way for you. There's an earthquake. Electricity cut outs and airwave readings surge off the charts, blowing instruments that monitor them. At PPTH, there's a blinding light and deafening screech, and a number of the staff's and patients' eyeballs and eardrums explode."

Horrified, Wilson said, "Oh my God," under his breath.

"The only room not affected is the one at the very centre of the blast - House's patient's. He's running a high fever, living off a machine and half his organs have failed irreversibly. When they find him, his room's free of debris, there are traces of blood around his perfectly-intact eyes and ears, and other than a coma he's already woken out of, he's completely healthy. Incisions from this week that needed stitches have disappeared without a trace."

Confronted with Cuddy's mountain of support, Wilson couldn't come up with a good rebuttal quickly enough.

"Um... House got his team to sneak in and perform one of the highly experimental and dangerous procedures he likes so much, and it blew up the hospital?"

Cuddy raised a brow.

He conceded the round to her with an incline of his head. "When you put it that way..." He still couldn't tell what to believe, though he wished he could. He would have to sit down and, like Dr. Watson and Col. Hastings before him, work through and decipher the solution that had been presented to him for himself.

"Wait'll you hear the cherry on top."

"What's that?"

"He has stigmata."

"What's that?"

* * *

"Tell me again," said Dean, "why we're still here." He drummed his fingers impatiently against the armrest of the chair he'd yoinked from Sam.

How his brother wasn't deaf, Sam didn't know; he could hear his music blasting from across the room. He was about to point out that he wouldn't be able to tell him anything while Dean had his music up that loud.

But that wouldn't have done any good.

Sam raised his voice. "You still need a checkup." He was aware that Dean would find that reason for staying somewhat flimsy and decided to go all out. "Traffic is ridiculous, we don't have the car, the FBI is everywhere, there are checkpoints all along state lines, and... and you still have to thank Dr. Cuddy for letting you stay at the hospital."

"Don't strain your brain there, college boy," said Dean. Sam threw the pillow at him. "I'm not saying we have to leave Jersey, but these FBI people will figure out that the explosion came from my room. Maybe that's why no nurses have come by or anything, they're on lockdown."

"They put you on Thorazine," yelled Sam. "You're not supposed to be doing anything but drooling right now."

"Enough with the screaming, dude, I can hear you." Dean threw the pillow back and it hit Sam on the head. Sam groaned and tumbled on the narrow bed. He was too hung over for this. Possibly still drunk.

"Tell you what," he said, propping himself up on his elbows. "Once we get everything we need done, let's see about jumping the border and go shoot some darts or something."

Dean beamed. "Yeah?" he asked, sounding oddly touched.

Sam experienced a pang of remorse. Dean resembled nothing so much as a homeless puppy who had just received a pat on the head. Sure, they hadn't been close lately, but he hadn't realised they'd spent that little time together.

"Yeah," Sam repeated firmly.

He scrutinised Dean carefully. While Sam had been enjoying their time together, he sensed Dean acting more reserved, holding something back. The healing was almost too good to be true, and he supposed his brother had come to that conclusion.

A moment later, the smile fell from Dean's face as he shot straight up in his seat.

"Dean?" asked Sam. He looked at Castiel to see if he had an explanation.

"It's Adam," said Castiel, unwinding something from his neck and holding it out to Sam.

"What?" Sam shot off the bed and took the headphone extended to him. Castiel had been listening to Dean's music with him? Sam envied him his ability to block out its infernal blaring. He grabbed Dean's phone to replay the recording and call up the information. It had been saved to the phone around four o'clock the night prior and crackled incessantly throughout.

"Hi, uh, Dean. It's your brother... half-brother... Adam Milligan. You seemed to recognise me but I never saw you until, well, just now." Mistrust crept into his voice. "Gonna have to explain that one to me, someday. I _really_ could've used some help a while back."

Sam paused it and nudged Dean. "He sounds as snarky as you," he said. One Dean was quite enough, he didn't know how they'd ever manage with two.

"You're probably wondering why I bothered to help you, then," Adam's voice continued when Sam pressed 'play'. "It's not that I owe you anything. Heaven's pretty lonely. When the angels came to me, they said if I was Michael's vessel, I could have some company when we were done. I'm not sure what we're going to do next. But I'll get to meet up with my mom again after, so it'll be worth it.

"I just..." They heard Adam sigh. "It's stupid. Just wanted to let you know I was here, explain myself a little - you're welcome, by the way. Michael seems to want a lot from you so you better not screw things up. And... maybe I'll see you again sometime, you and dad, hopefully not too soon. Good luck with that."

The recording cut out with a screech at the end, and Dean was out of his chair in an instant. His earbud went flying, pulling Sam's with it. Sam had to grab the phone to keep it from smashing into the wall.

"Goddammit," muttered Dean. Breathing heavily, he charged across the room in two strides and yanked at the door. When it didn't open, he banged on it.

"Dean, what's wrong?" Sam asked. "This is good." He had to induce his latent debating skills, rusty without Law class practice, to convince himself and his brother about that. "Adam's going to be okay, you're better, and Michael's still waiting on you, so he's not going to do anything."

"You think I _wanted_ one of my brothers as a vessel?" Dean gestured towards Cas. "Look what happened to Jimmy, the poor bastard!" Castiel bristled and turned away from him, as if to say he would have no part in this. Dean, pacing restlessly, didn't notice. "Michael's throwing his weight around and destroying the country, and he'll probably do it again if I don't give in." He kicked at the wall with a bare foot; it hadn't occurred to them to bring clothes for him. "Where's the damn shower in this place? Can't get a moment of privacy."

Sam furrowed his brow. "You want to be alone?"

"No. I want out of this place already, this state, this _life_. Why do we always get stuck with shit like this, huh?"

He threw himself into the chair. Castiel approached tentatively and reached out an awkward hand. It hovered over Dean's shoulder for a few moments before pressing down, flat, as if he was testing a mattress. Well, at least he was trying.

Sam was still lost at sea trying to understand what had gotten into Dean, though the more he thought about it, the more he worried that he might not want to know. Adam's message to them (wait, had Sam even been mentioned?) had set something off in his brother. He tried to figure it out while Dean and Castiel had one of their secret silent conversations.

Dean curled his hand into a tight first and pressed it hard against his mouth and nose. With the other hand, he swiped at his eyes. Sam tried to catch his attention.

"How are-" Stupid question. "Talk to me," Sam pleaded.

"Cas," Dean began, and Sam thought he was ignoring him. "Could we have a moment?"

"I thought we were already doing that," said Castiel. "Is that not what this is?"

"Dean and I need to talk, alone," Sam intervened.

Castiel nodded slowly, gaze set guardedly on Dean. When the door didn't open for him, either, he wrenched off the handle and pulled the door open from the outside before managing to exit. Sam gawked at the mangled frame and hole in the door, agonising over how they could account for it.

"Must've blown his load already," Dean said without much interest. Sam grimaced, until he got what Dean was talking about. Honestly, did Dean _have_ to be so gross? "He should've been able to pop out, no problem."

"He's tired," said Sam. From his series of phone calls with the angel, it hadn't seemed like he'd stopped moving once.

Dean didn't ask. "Huh."

They sat there in silence for a while - silence for Dean, anyway, whose eyes remained insistently on the wall. Sam was secretly chanting _give him time, give him time_ to himself to prevent himself from prodding Dean to say anything before he'd gathered his thoughts. He knew if he did, Dean would clam up and put him off.

His patience was rewarded when Dean spoke up with, "I'm only going to say this once, and then we're not talking about it again." Dean's mouth jerked upwards in a pained smile. "Easier for me, less boring for you."

Sam's cheeks heated. He never would've mocked Dean for opening up to him without the siren forcing it out of him. It definitely went into the Top 10 Moments Sam Winchester Wishes Everyone Could Forget.

"Keep in mind this is the only conversation we're going to have about this. When it's done, it's done."

He nodded, although he didn't know if he'd be able to hold true to that.

Dean tapped his fingers against the armrest at a deliberate pace, occasionally contorting his mouth into the shapes of various words before rejecting them a few beats later.

"I'm not happy about this situation," he said finally, more cautious and calculated with his words than usual.

"That, I got," said Sam. He hated the way Dean was speaking, so disconnected from his usual gruff enthusiasm. He sounded like he'd given up hope. Obviously, Sam hadn't learnt from his mistakes if he hadn't considered the possibly that getting his brother back ran the risk of him being this lifeless because of it.

"And sure, I didn't want to be here in the first place, but no one twisted my arm to make me stay, so I'm not gonna blame anyone else. As a result? A university blew up, and its whole damn hospital with it. The Apocalypse is in full swing out there."

"You haven't even seen it out there - _I_ haven't even seen it out there."

He laughed caustically. Sam flinched. Could this distant, defeated frame of mind really be coming from his brother? He didn't doubt that Dean was the only one in there, but it was hard not to want to test it. He took out his flask of holy water, unscrewed it and passed it to him. Dean thought nothing of chugging it down.

"Thanks. I talked to Dr. Cuddy, you know. She told me all about it, right down to the number of casualties. Seventeen people are dead. Maybe more, now. She doesn't like me much."

"It's not your fault," protested Sam. "Michael-"

"I don't even think it happened when he healed me," Dean interrupted. "For Adam to have left that message, Michael musta left him and returned, and his mojo exploded all over the place." He wrinkled his nose. "Angels have gotten dirtier lately, I swear."

"Wow," Sam said, though not in reference to any celestial perversions. "That makes sense, I guess, he is the most powerful of the angels. He's probably can't operate on a small scale."

"I don't really care about his control issues, and I doubt Adam knew, it's not his fault, but..." Dean took a deep breath and laid it all out there. "People have died because of me, innocent people, and I don't like it. _I_ should've been the one to go. It's messed up."

"We can't help who we are to the angels, Dean, and most the time, we can't stop them, anyway."

Dean ignored Sam's reasoning. "I had this dream once," he said. "I'm walking down this path, it goes up a hill, and I'm climbing, but then I realise the hill's made of dead bodies, and I have to step on every one to get to the top."

The things Dean's brain came up with could completely floor Sam sometimes, the reminder of how much there was going on in there that he usually assumed was nothing.

"Thought it was stupid," Dean continued, "once I woke up, but I dunno, Sammy, it's starting to make sense, and I don't really want to get better, if it means continuing down that path. All those people dying because there's something I have to do."

"You do know you can't help it, right? We need to keep the world from ending. It's not your-"

"Yeah, yeah, you said that already. When all the stuff going wrong is because of me, how am I supposed to take it?" Dean shifted. "Whatever. Let's just get that checkup and leave."

Detecting his window of opportunity closing, Sam asked the first thing he could think of. "How come you didn't want Cas to hear us, anyway?"

"C'mon, Sam! The last thing I'm gonna do is tell the kamikaze operative of the group that things aren't going so hot right now."

"Have you forgiven him?"

"What do you mean?" asked Dean, as if he wasn't aware of the procedure involved.

Come to think of it, people around him tended to take for granted that he forgave them, whether he said anything or not. The fact that he always gave in simply further entrenched the assumptions. Sam's currently-unfolding discovery of that aspect of Dean made him nervous. Maybe Dean had never pardoned him after all. It would explain why they'd fought so much since Dean had gotten sick.

"The whole telling-on-you-to-the-angels business didn't piss you off?" Sam prodded. He wasn't about to waste a chance to get Dean to talk about his feelings, when it was so rare for him to let it all out.

"Well... yeah. I kind of thought he was working with the Empire again, but I think he didn't want to see all his fine work go to waste - and I _am_ pretty fine."

Sam couldn't let that one go unpunished. "For someone who looks like a duck maybe." He dodged his brother's punch.

"His plan worked, and everything got shot to shit for it to happen. 'Course I'm pissed off. I choose to bury it and not say anything."

Dean, always with the burying. Sam questioned why he'd never had an ulcer. Angels must be involved in preventing floods of stomach acid, accumulated from stress, from engulfing Dean at any moment.

"_Anything_? We had a chat after you sent us away. I'm pretty sure he expects you to say _something_."

"Sam, you're so lame, you make it sound like I'm the pharmacist of forgiveness. I'm not Dad, I don't expect everyone to follow my orders."

"Well, I didn't ask about court-martialling him. Are you going to trust him?"

Dean heaved a sigh. "He wants what we want and gave up everything to try and get it. At this point, we kinda owe him."

"That's not a yes," said Sam. "Hmm?"

Why he was pushing this, he didn't quite know. He'd agreed to Castiel's plan... and then told him off for following through, when Dean was the betrayed one in that circumstance. He'd even contemplated pursuing Dr. Chase's suggestion of getting Dean declared to exploit power of attorney over him, if he had to. Compared to him, Castiel came out smelling like roses, and much more consistent roses at that.

But Dean had just been struck when he was down, and he looked so very friendless right now that Sam couldn't help but encourage contact with anyone.

"What can I say," Dean answered hollowly, "trusting someone's not all it's cracked up to be."

"That's not fair," Sam said and, since Dean was planning on being a bastard about it, decided to drop the matter altogether and change the subject. "So I'm not going to let you sit here and paint yourself as the face that launched a thousand ships."

"What, Zoolander?"

Sam's jaw dropped. "Helen of Troy! The _Iliad_?"

"The one by the blind guy or the one with the chick who orgasms at the end? ...are they the same thing?"

"I cannot believe I'm related to you."

* * *

"And you're sure," Cameron asked the paramedic _again_, "that he said this was the same patient?"

His partner turned up the stereo, yelling, "Sorry, can't hear you!"

Cameron massaged her neck, attempting to work out the tension that came of being forced to listen to the same country CD over and over. She preferred the sound of the sirens. Fortunately, she didn't have to choose, with both on so very loud. The way the chart had turned out, it would require a lot of discussion, but so far, everything had needed to be repeated several times before anyone understood it.

Chase nudged her leg with his and spoke into her ear: "Look at Foreman."

Foreman hadn't paid much notice to the case since they'd all climbed in, insisting that he needed to "rest his eyes". That 'rest' was turning very literal, despite all the noise. His head jerked along with the movements of the vehicle and he mumbled something as they hit a pothole. Chase grinned.

"Heartwarming," said Cameron as Foreman's head rolled onto Chase's shoulder.

They were crammed very tightly in a corner of an ambulance on the way to Mercy Hospital, having transferred from one that had travelled from St. Sebastian's to Princeton-Plainsboro. It had been a shock to all of them to see what had become of their workplace. The whole campus was reminiscent of the hollowed-out, empty shells of buildings you saw in war movies. The worry weighing on her now was what would become of their jobs, whether House would be forced to break up the team. She didn't think he would do it if he could help it, didn't think he _could_ do it. She didn't want to have to find out, but she knew their department's situation was unique to PPTH, and without it, they wouldn't be able to work together.

The threat of losing his job had shocked Foreman out of his espresso jitters, leading to his current crash. Beyond a doubt, it had been the Everest of caffeine highs; Cameron had been almost sad to see it end. She'd never seen Foreman so interesting before. In a staccato shout, Foreman had told them that he hadn't slept since the middle of their 50-hour shift. He'd already gotten as comfortable as he could at St Seb's by the time they'd shown up and gotten lost one turn past the doors.

"One thing Dean mentioned was that his case was like the _Croatoan_ book," said Chase, tone casual and face innocent. Cameron glared at him.

"I'm not getting into another discussion about how 'the subtext of the patient's delusions manifests itself throughout the series'." That debate had made her regret not acquiring Chuck's contact information when she'd had the chance. House might have it, at any rate.

"Not quite." He glanced at Foreman and leaned towards her, lowering his voice. "You don't find it strange that the same thing happened here as in the book? Everything gets cut off, people die, and suddenly the virus is gone?"

She felt a chill go through her and rubbed at the goosebumps on her forearms.

"We still don't know if it's the same patient," she responded, spreading the patient's chart across their laps. There were new smudges on it from the rescue worker who had been moving Dean. She hoped House would've had the chance to ask him some questions.

"Read the descriptions of the new wounds." He pointed to the relevant lines. "His wrists and ankles are bleeding through."

Hearing about it in so vividly made Cameron wince and examine her own wrists, thankful they were whole and intact. Chase clasped a comforting hand around them.

"He'd already cut across his hand once," she reminded him. "House yelled at me for not confiscating his weapons, as if I make a habit of picking up ammo in every room like a video game."

"Picture it," said Chase, bounding off the seat and almost knocking over the sedated patient's IV. "Whoops." He stretched his arms out to either side, rotating them so his palms faced her. With one outstretched hand, he gripped the headrest of the passenger seat for balance. The paramedic turned around, glared, and turned the music up another notch. Cameron wished she'd brought her Zune along to drown out the questionable tastes of the woman in the front. She and Chase could've communicated through notes. "Do you see it?"

She couldn't tell what he was trying to show her. "See what?"

"All the different points." He flexed his fingers and toes at her, almost losing his footing.

"I think you'd better sit down," she said hastily as the same bump that had thrown him off-balance threatened to send Foreman's hard head hurtling towards her.

He squeezed back between them, looking disappointed. "Right. I was hoping you'd know what I was talking about to save me the embarrassment of having to explain something so out there, but... I think it's stigmata."

It only rang a bell as a movie title. "Remind me?"

"Manifesting the wounds of the Crucifixion? They figured out that it's psychosomatic, but throughout Church history, anyone who had it was revered for their holiness. Even today, people still get attention for it."

"So do you..." Cameron trailed off, cognisant of the thin line she was treading. If Chase believed in it, she didn't want to scare him away from sharing his opinion, but she couldn't see it as anything but psychologically-driven, and he was aware of that. "Tell me how you see it, and I promise not to dismiss it either way."

"Oh, it makes sense that a religious psychotic _that _fuelled by his delusions develops stigmata," said Chase, to her surprise. He laughed at the look on her face. "If it turns out that this patient is actually Dean, and he has as few signs of his disease as it says... I'll admit, it'll get to me."

Foreman stirred. "Malarial purpura," he mumbled.

Cameron and Chase found themselves nodding in agreement with his suggestion. She wrote it on the chart with a question mark as a possible explanation.

"I think he might be better at diagnosis when he's asleep," said Chase, amazed.

"Hey," scolded Cameron. "We can't all have specialised in it like some people. Don't be mean."

She struggled to take her own advice as she considered what her answer would be to the singer's incessant question of 'how she liked him now'.

"Bugger," said Chase. "The brother's blood analysis is sitting on the printer at home."

* * *

After some time wandering around diagnosing people in the hallways and checking the televisions, House decided Cuddy'd had more than enough time to reassure herself about the patient. He made the necessary preparations, borrowing Dr. Paine's labcoat in the process (never to be returned!), and headed over.

He hadn't conceived of her certainty about the patient panning out. It was a hollow victory. He hadn't even managed to solve the medical aspect of the case without getting an even bigger mystery thrown on top of it. If it weren't for the historical precedence, he wouldn't have believed the man in Psych to be the same one. Living on the edge, to say the least, seemed to be Dean Winchester's M.O.

He wondered, danger aside, how much haranguing it would take to force Dean to tip his hand and share his secret with House. Maybe if he called off his threat to involve the police, Dean would reveal what kind of untraceable toxin or weird invisible implant went into faking so many deaths.

The door to the patient's room stood out from the rest of the ward. House frowned, moving closer to inspect the damage. It hadn't been broken an hour ago. Oh well, given the patient's penchant for escape, he had probably found a way to break it using the IV stand. He muttered a curse over the lost chance to puzzle out the solution.

House hooked a finger through the gaping hole and pulled it open. The inhabited room that greeted him took him too aback for him to make the first move.

"Hey doc," said the patient. "Give me the once-over and then I get out of your hair?"

The vulnerability he hadn't been able to hide from House during the previous earthquake lingered in him, and his mood had spread to his brother. Perfect time to divide and conquer.

"You," said House, pointing at the brother. "When did you get here?"

The patient answered for him. "He got here before you, left, came back. How 'bout that physical?"

"Your car's still in the handicapped spot at the hospital."

The patient did a double take. "Is she okay?"

Of course the patient was the kind of man who thought of his car as female. As far as House could tell, Cuddy was the only living woman the patient knew, other than the fictional Harvelles.

"Destroyed," said House, "thanks for asking." He allowed himself a vindictive little smile at the sight of the patient's devastation.

"The Impala's gone?" the brother asked. He swallowed.

"I was referring to the hospital, but your concern is _truly _touching." House stretched the latex glove on his hand and let it go with an ominous snap. "Give me some time to look him over?"

The brother left with an uneasy backward glance and the patient got up.

"Any chance we can cover that up before we get started?" he asked with nervous, faked good humour, indicating the hole in the door.

"You break it, you buy it," said House. He tilted the patient's chin up and palpated the sides of his neck. "So you tried to kill yourself." Testing of theory number one was now in session.

The patient jerked away. "No, I didn't."

"Two ways this can go. We can pretend that you weren't at the centre of the detonation, or you can stop denying it." House reached for the bandages on the patient's wrist and, for once, the patient chose to cooperate. "Wow. Must've taken you a while." Without weapons, Dean had to have used up the last of his strength to rub the skin raw.

He supposed he was being unfair – though when did that ever stop him? No, the problem was his dislike of the patient overriding his usual process of finding explanations based on medicine and past behavior. Dean's fever hadn't subsided, according to his chart, and further delirium could've brought on the self-harm, just as it had the last time. Besides, the writer had e-mailed him a draft of one of the later books, _Yellow Fever_, where Dean had injured himself similarly.

"Do you remember how you got these?" he asked.

The patient shook his head. "Just woke up and they were there... along with the handcuffs, thanks. No one bother to leave me a note or anything?"

House cleaned the wounds with ruthless efficiency as the patient flinched - a remarkably restrained reaction considering how deep the alcohol was going into the exposed tissue.

"How'd you get out, then?"

"Trade secret."

"Get on the bed."

House removed the ankle dressings. With both sets of abrasions exposed, he could now see the forest instead of the trees.

"I know what this is," he said, fishing again for the patient's response.

The patient wouldn't meet his eyes. "Everyone's Dan Brown these days."

"And a religious nut to boot." The patient, Cuddy, Wilson... he hoped it wasn't contagious.

"Ha! You're telling me."

"Did you convert after 'getting out of Hell'?" He had ulterior motives in asking; he still didn't know the answer to how book-Dean had managed to escape.

The patient shrugged. "Sure, why not."

"It doesn't matter if you don't tell me. I'll figure it out."

"Gosh, you should get a medal."

"I've been told." House started cleaning out the wounds on Dean's legs, and Dean hissed, muscles tensing. "Did you blow up the hospital?"

Dean's mouth tightened. "No," he replied, but something in the way he said it awoke House's suspicions, planted that morning at PPTH. He tried again.

"You know who did."

The patient flung himself off the bed, keeping his back to House. "I don't know anything about it. Wish I did."

"Was it your fault?" House guessed.

The patient twisted his head back towards him, and House moved closer. In the patient's profile he could see his eyelashes fluttering madly, throat bobbing as he swallowed.

"Yeah," he whispered, and House's control broke into a cold fury as he thought of Cuddy's tearful face, Lou the night janitor with senses obliterated. He crossed a line he rarely crossed and reached towards the patient, palm upheld.

He slapped him. The sound echoed off the concrete walls.

The patient clenched his fists. There was a muscle working in his jaw that subsided as he took a deep breath and nodded once.

"You disgust me," hissed House.

"You and Sam should form a club," said the patient half-heartedly. His paint-by-numbers reaction of feigning cheer was wearing thin on House. "I swear, you doctors never stop talking. What happened to doing your job?"

House was armed and ready for that, too, a syringe in his hand. "I _am_," he said, plunging a needle into him.

The patient scrambled for direction before giving in to dizziness. He teetered across the room for several minutes until he went down, pulling half the furniture with him.

"That's it," said House, nudging the body on the floor with his cane. "Next time, I'm using horse tranquillisers."

If there was one thing House hated, it was a healthy patient, and Dean had the constitution of an elephant.

He was going to find out why.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**

This wasn't House's first rodeo, even if it had to be conducted in a foreign arena. Long practice had taught him that the first step after drugging a patient to hold against his will was removing the family for as long as necessary.

So he sent the brother off to get the car back, a task that the brother had already anticipated, if not from him, and told Sam they'd need to keep the patient for the rest of the day at least, preferably overnight. The other hangers-on were nowhere to be found, but he figured they weren't important anyway.

With hospital facilities so overtaxed, there wasn't much he could do anyway. The meagre assortment of lab services was such that the X-ray machine was the best he could shove past everyone in line for. Naturally, he took his opportunity with the resources to perform every test twice.

When he dropped by to bother his team, the boyfriend was with the patient. He stifled a laugh at the sight of them, the boyfriend's palm pushed once into the patient's chest while the patient tried weakly to fend him off with a badly-aimed flail of the arm. The bandages had been undone, and Castiel pressed his other hand briefly to the patient's wrist, as if he was trying to take the pulse through the bare tissue.

"That's going to spread infection," House warned, somewhat leery. Not that he hadn't poked there himself, but still.

Castiel turned to House as the patient attempted to squirm away. "This has to stop," he said.

"I know," House agreed. "Hospital PDAs belong in my office and my office only, and now that he-" he nodded his head at Dean- "destroyed it, we all have to suffer."

He admired the poker face that came at him. It could outstare the abyss.

"There's nothing wrong with Dean," Castiel said, "and he didn't do anything wrong."

"Tol' him... 'cause o' me," Dean slurred.

The other man froze, then relinquished his hold on him and strode out.

"Whoops," said House. "There goes your moment."

"Best timing," said the patient hazily, flicking his bandage back over. "Y'said... religious nuts. Awkward."

"I hope he washes his hands," House muttered.

"C'n I _go_?"

"Not on my watch." House was tempted to laugh maniacally (for effect, as one did), but let it go.

Dean yawned. Really, he was doing a masterful job of staying conscious. The pharmacist was starting to mistrust House's requests, something House's reputation didn't help.

"'m better," said Dean.

"I'm not," House returned. "You_ owe_ us a day to look you over and see what we can find after what you did to the hospital."

"Didn't," Dean mumbled, then, "Fine."

House had to hold back on his snarky retort because Dean was finally unconscious again, mouth open and snoring like a buzzsaw. He shut the patient's mouth by lifting his jaw with the edge of a finger and went off to calculate the permitted levels of sedative dosage he could reach without affecting too many of the tests or (reluctantly) the patient's liver function.

The next time he saw Dean, he turned out to be very glad that he was no longer unconscious.

It was hard to put together how exactly things had happened; once they'd started, he'd been more confused than anyone. He'd come out from the room because of the screams, initially - more so because he had never learnt to leave well enough alone. There was always someone screaming somewhere in a hospital, and despite his own quickness with a needle, he couldn't always provide much assistance. Usually, he didn't even want to.

But it had been a frustrating, fruitless day. Barely any results had come in yet. They were waiting on results from resentful, understaffed labs that wouldn't let his team handle the work like they would at PPTH. House huffed remembering their milquetoast speeches about regulations and only letting certified lab technicians in.

He missed his facilities.

So he'd popped out from the MRI room where he'd been playing I Spy in Dean's brain, to the annoyance of the techs, to have a look.

"_You!_" someone roared when he did. Not the most uncommon greeting he received on a daily basis, but he didn't recognise the voice. He prepared himself to duck as he turned around, anticipating a faceful of fist otherwise.

Instead, he was charged and taken down. His assailant panted a furious tirade at him, something about foot and earthquake and wife and baby. House's head reeled from being slammed against the floor. He concentrated on giving as good as he got. His assailant was younger and stronger, but an amputee. It worked out fine first. Then, the other man crushed his knee into House's infarction.

All the pills in the world couldn't have kept him from feeling _that_. A wild, uncontrolled shout ripped from him as he became oblivious to anything but the pain, powerless to stop his attacker. He panted for breath and screwed up his eyes against involuntary tears.

When he became aware again, nerves still roaring at him, the other man had a knife to his throat. His vision swam, but he finally placed the man. A clinic case, a soldier who'd shot his toe off trying to get discharged. House had discouraged him. It hadn't been enough...

The soldier hissed at him about his family. There was a yell in the distance. The soldier looked up, distracted. Someone else came hurtling at them and knocked the soldier off House. House scrambled to the side. His leg was more wobbly than usual. Head, too. As his vision cleared, he watched the two figures fighting. The new one grabbed for House's cane and whacked the soldier with it until he fell limp.

House realised with a shock that the man who had subdued the soldier was none other than his patient.

He couldn't tell if Dean was just delusional in the way Freedom Master had been, or if he really had just tried to help House, which would mean...

It would be like the woman with Wilson's disease; selflessness meant she didn't have schizophrenia.

Dean might not be mentally ill after all. Just screwed up.

It wasn't the right moment to weave it into his mesh of theories yet, but it stayed with him. He diagnosed himself with a probable concussion and definite shock. He didn't do anything about it. It gave everything that happened next a dreamlike quality.

"You could've gotten us both killed," House said as Dean helped him up. He swayed a little as the change in position exacerbated his dizziness and jerked away from Dean's hand hovering to steady him. That set him against the wall. He leaned heavily, placing his weight on the guiderail.

Dean grinned cockily. "But I didn't." He didn't seem to expect gratitude, for which House was glad. He didn't think he was up to giving any.

"You're bleeding," he said. Dean's hospital gown was sodden to his side, and the wet patch was spreading, blood seeping into the material. Knife must've got him. When had that come out, anyway?

"S'okay. Didn't hit any major organs."

"How do you know?"

"I know my pains."

House knew his own, too, and they were screaming at him. He wanted nothing more than to hit up the pharmacy for drugs, but he knew where that would lead. People swarmed around them now, far more frantic than Dean or House. They had Dean on a gurney and seemed to be trying to get House to do the same. He shook them off, took one last look at the fallen soldier, and escaped. He couldn't be here right now.

There were still sedatives meant for Dean in Dr. Payne's labcoat. He went into a supply closet and diluted one enough to keep him alert. It wasn't Vicodin, and that was a relief, but it was something. Really, patients were too sensitive if his mental attacks could lead to physical so quickly, he thought as he depressed the plunger into his arm. A good thing he had this to lessen the buzzing reverberating through his ears.

He didn't want to talk to anyone so he assembled his _better_ crack team: a portable TV (Cameron), a chocolate bar (Foreman), and some time alone in the chapel (Chase).

His third condition proved unattainable. As soon as he opened the chapel door, a pair of cold blue eyes bored into him. It was as if the boyfriend had expected to meet him here.

"Why are you here?" asked House, trying to get him to leave. "You know, your boyfriend's just been stabbed."

Except boyfriend wasn't the designation to use, he could see that now (probably why Castiel didn't react to the news). You might as well try to grasp a bolt of lightning. His brow was set and his stare intent and unblinking, far colder and more remote since the first time they'd spoken. Then, he'd accessorised with mundane accoutrements of everyday life: a friend tagging along, the unforgettable bowl of soup. Here, all of that was stripped away, as if he had stretched and grown into something other, and his humanity had been the chrysalis that had fallen away. The discordancy of Castiel's presence made his skin prickle and his hair stand on end. He rubbed his arms to relieve the crawling sensation. Didn't work.

"Oh look," he said, doing what he did best in situations of supreme discomfort, "it's Silent Bob."

His quip was, of course, ignored. "You did not seem to be looking for the Father."

Served him right going to a chapel, to get into a discussion about God with someone who made your heart constrict just looking at him. Freaking God, the topic on everyone's mind lately. What had He ever done for House?

"Fathers, I can do without," said House.

"Of course. You had two."

Was Castiel still referring to God?

The buzzing in House's ears got louder. His pulse pounded in the spot where the soldier had held the knife. He had never learnt his name. Par for the course with a clinic patient, even this one, but it seemed wrong not knowing in the case of life-threatening attacks. His head had been too tangled to unfurl the soldier's words, but he would need to. So much to get done. The pounding increased.

"You have to let Dean go."

What shot out of House's mouth was nearly 'Who's Dean?' except much as he would like to pretend he didn't know his patients' names, he did. He could still recite the name of every single person who'd died under his care, and he didn't think this... whoever, _what_ever would be fooled.

Castiel reached out towards his leg, and House slapped him away. He might as well have hit a brick wall; he could identify with the patient over how things had unfolded in Radiology, now. Castiel made contact and suddenly there was pain, like having his leg ground into all over again, and then there was the blissful absence thereof.

House's mouth was dry. "How-?" He had dreamed about this for years, not been able to hold onto it when he had it. He'd clung desperately to the feeling all the same when he'd had a chance, so he'd be able to remember it. He clung now too.

Castiel removed his finger and it all came hammering back, sharpening House's thoughts to only one point: he needed a pill. With shaking fingers he took the cap off and took all the ibuprofen that spilled out onto his hand, he didn't check how many. His heart was beating fast, squeezing like a vice in his trembling chest, from the sudden onset of pain.

"You have to let Dean go," Castiel repeated, pitiless.

House drew a ragged breath and let it out in a whoosh. "You bastard," he cried, "you _bastard_. Why did you do that?"

The man tilted his head. "It's the most I can do."

He still couldn't get over that sick flickering of pain. It took twenty long, shuddering breaths to think critically again. "So you can't. But you know someone who can, and that's who it was."

The man did not say anything. Rage seized House.

"Who the hell are you?" he yelled.

"Why do you ask questions to which you will not believe the answer?" His voice sounded a little closer to a voice now.

He reached for the collar of the trench coat and shook Castiel, who remained implacable. "Something's wrong here," he said. "Why are you doing this? What _can_ you do? Who are you?"

Castiel reached out and curled his fingers around House's jaw, hands placed as if it was a yellowed mandible in an anthropology class. It could not have been more impersonal.

"Telling you the truth will not help ease your mind, though you may yet be able to learn. Right now you need to understand that your patient has a mission, one bigger than this world, that you cannot keep him from any longer. _You need to let Dean Winchester go_, not turn on him."

_What's it to you?_ he wanted to ask but was too out of his element. "Why do you care?" he managed.

A flicker of confusion, the first emotional response he'd gotten. "Dean is necessary for what is to come."

"And to you?" House pressed.

Another flicker, then he disappeared before House's very eyes, the touch on his face vanishing as if it had never been there.

It must never have been there.

Great. The best his pain-induced hallucination could come up with was freaking _aliens_.

At least it explained the rib markings?

He'd read too many of those stupid books. No more.

He was all jittery. His chest still felt squeezed, his brain battered. He knew he shouldn't even be trying to sleep right now, let alone what he was about to do, but after all the spikes his pain had gone through in the past minutes, oblivion would be a welcome change.

House pulled another of Dean's sedatives out of the labcoat and managed to get the bottle unscrewed after a few tries. He downed it, wincing and spitting at the acrid taste, then settled himself, spent, on the hard wooden bench. Sleeping on it would stiffen him fiercely by the time he woke up, whenever that might be. He kept his body rigid, afraid to move. His worries over what lies his brain would throw at him next were justified, after all...

He awoke some hours later to a sense of disappointment, a dry mouth, and all the aches his age could throw at him. His phone beeped. Service must be back up. The police probably wanted to question him about what had happened that afternoon.

After reclaiming his motorcycle, he sped dangerously through the dark roads of the outskirts - still no streetlights - before shooting over to Wilson's place, where his friend took one look at his face and let him in without a word.

* * *

Sam paced Dean's new room (he was building quite a collection), sneaking peeks at his brother. In any other family, it would be the normal signs of concern over one of their loved ones being stabbed. For the Winchesters, this was business as usual. Had Sam expected to come across his brother being wheeled into surgery (obvious overkill) as he entered the hospital? No, but it was hardly the strangest or most fatal way he'd ever encountered Dean. All in a day's work.

As soon as Sam caught his brother scrunching his features the way he did when trying to figure out where he'd woken up this time, he readied himself. The second Dean had his eyes fully open, he was greeted with full-on pointing and laughing.

"You couldn't even go one day," gloated Sam, "not _one_. Wait 'til I tell Bobby, you're never gonna hear the end of it." He grinned.

"Yeah, I'm glad some stumpy bastard didn't get me too, but you don't hear me laughing." Dean rubbed vigorously at his face, trying to wake himself up.

Sam sobered. "It was either this or back to the hand-wringing. I can't even keep track of you anymore, man."

"Not your job," Dean responded instantly, as Sam'd known he would. "Look at me, I'm bouncing back like a cat every time. There's only one explanation for it."

Oh God. Sam rolled his eyes. "What's that, Dean."

Dean let loose an ear-to-ear smile. "I'm Batman."

"How come I never get to be Batman?"

"Cause last time you tried, you lost your damn shoe, dumbass! 'Sides, I got the record on coming back."

"Angels count as cheating," mumbled Sam.

"C'mon, being Robin's not so bad! Not that I would know."

Dean missed Sam's scowl, immersed in checking his wound. "This is pathetic," he said.

Sam nodded. "I know! I watched while they patched you up, and I don't even think it'll scar. I've stitched up far worse on myself, let alone on you."

"Aw, Sammy's a big boy now. What the hell was I out for? Dad would've knocked me back into unconsciousness for a week for friggin' _fainting_ like this from a scratch." Dean shuddered.

Sam, being a good and benevolent brother, avoided pointing out the girlishness of such an action, though he did start off with, "Don't call me Sammy. They said you were weakened by..." He creased his brow. "'Massive amounts of sedatives already in the bloodstream'? What did Dr. House _do_ to you?"

Dean winced. "Dude, you don't wanna know. Hey, how 'bout next time, you _don't_ leave me alone with the crazy doctor who wants to turn me into a lab sample?"

"He wants to do that to me, too," Sam pointed out. He smirked. "Besides, this is what I was off getting. Took for_ever_, by the way, and you completely owe me." He hooked the car keys from a finger, gave them a spin and tossed them to Dean, who brightened when he caught them.

"Aw, my baby! She's okay, right? Stupid doc made it sound like she was ready for the junk heap."

"It's weird, but..." Sam knew Dean would consider it natural, but it still freaked him out a little. "I think the angels left it in better condition than they found it. I know the stain from-"

Oh crap. It was too late to backtrack; Dean was on it like a bloodhound.

"You spilled something in my baby?" Sam's mind filled in 'My preciousssss' as Dean caressed the keys. He pointed at Sam. "You're so dead. And grounded. Yeah," he replied to Sam's scoff, "you heard me. Grounded from the car. You're never driving it again."

Sam sighed. He was pretty sure it had taken an entire year to get driving privileges. It was worth it for 'driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole' alone. He didn't actually _like_ hip hop, but was it worth hearing Dean bitch and moan in agony for an hour before digging in his bag for headphones with a huge pout on his face? Silly question. Of course it was.

At least Dean didn't know the stain had come from a demon springing a leak. Where was Cas, anyway? He'd made the mess, not Sam.

Dean worked the arm opposite his wound. "I'd pop my stitches if I tried it now, but I'm saving a punch for you, don't think I'm not. Speaking of punching people, how's the not-so good doctor, anyway? Didn't look like he got a scratch on him, though he got beat up some."

"Really?" said Sam. "Didn't think you'd care beyond that. Not with this guy, anyway. I don't know how he is. Last time I went in the hallway, they were still paging him."

"We saved Bela, didn't we?" said Dean. "And if we only decided to save people who could work a pair of heels, we'd all be dead. Especially Bobby."

Sam cringed at the mental image and delivered some payback in saying, "I don't know, Dean. Something tells me you'd make it through."

"Shut up," Dean replied, still not at the top of his game so soon after waking. Sam took pity on him - no fun teasing someone who wouldn't tease back - and went off to get them some coffee. He heard the PA system paging Dr. House once more, and even the elusive Dr. Cuddy, whom he still hadn't met.

On the way back, he came across Castiel. Something about him made Sam think of the first time they met, and he stiffened his spine. They hadn't exactly gotten along then.

"Hey, Cas," he said warily. "They moved Dean again after he got stabbed." He wracked his brain for any information to use to make sure this really was Castiel.

"That's whom Dr. House was talking about," said Castiel. "Is he all right to leave soon?"

Sam slowed his stride in surprise and stared at Castiel. "That's all? Last time he wasn't doing well, you called in the Spanish Armada, and this time you just want to know if he can leave? What's going on with you? And wait," he added as his mind caught up with all the questions racing through them, "you talked to Dr. House? Where is he, anyway?"

"He's in the chapel." Castiel paused. "I wouldn't look for him right now."

Castiel's flat, calm tone made it sound so ominous that Sam tensed.

"Maybe I should go check on him, let him know the hospital wants him?" Sam suggested with some apprehension.

"He's beyond our help," said Castiel without concern. Now Sam really feared for the doctor. "Dean is not." He trained his gaze directly on Sam. "Shall we see to him?"

Sometimes, angel talk sounded like Mafia movies. Shaking his head, Sam readied Ruby's knife in case he and Dean needed it. Strange that it took Castiel being more like himself to alarm Sam. He quickened his pace, wanting to get the whole incident over with.

"Aw, dude," Dean said as soon as he caught sight of the angel. "You didn't."

"I did," said Cas. Sam gawked at both of them in bewilderment.

Dean must've picked up the same warnings Sam had, but he seemed to have managed to pull them into a conclusion. If something had gone bad in Cas, Dean wouldn't have hesitated to lay into him, or at least Sam thought he wouldn't, so that must not be the case. He let himself relax slightly.

Castiel reached out and pushed Dean in the chest. Dean howled, mainly in surprise. He was just being a drama queen. Nevertheless, Sam moved forward in case he needed to protect Dean, though he still wasn't certain what was going on.

"Son of a _bitch!_ The hell was that for?"

"You keep destroying my sigils," said Castiel frostily. "I had to replace them - again. Sam may be an affront to nature, but he never needs his sigils replaced."

Sam sighed. It was getting hard to argue Castiel's first point about him, so he didn't try. Neither, depressingly, did Dean.

"_Sam_ doesn't have the whole Heavenly Host gunning for him!" Dean retorted.

"Um, that's because of the _devil_," Sam interjected. "Way worse."

They swivelled to stare at him, and he could swear Dean was about to say 'Let the grownups talk, Sammy.' Fortunately, he didn't, or Sam would've had to provide swift retribution, injuries or no injuries.

Fine. Let them have their 'teddy-tête', as Bobby called it. He stalked away a few feet, crossed his arms, and made sure they knew he was watching them. Listening in.

"Seriously," said Dean, "you didn't need to drain the batteries. We've done this for a long time, Cas. We can do it without mojo."

"I don't know how to do things that way," snapped Castiel, "nor do I want to have to learn."

Comprehension dawned on Sam. So the changes in Castiel had been caused by reverting to his former powers? Damn, this might screw them for the next time they needed some juice.

Sam shook his head. He needed to stop thinking of powers as a necessity in their job; that had only got him in trouble the last time. Dean was right, they could do without. But what had possessed Cas, pun aside, to do it? Sam thought back to his earlier suspicions. He guessed the question was more, what exactly had Castiel done to Dr. House, mind-wiped him? Sent him to another dimension?

"Well," Dean responded sarcastically, that was all, and they got his meaning. Yeah, it would be surreal teaching an angel to use a gun. All part and parcel of the Apocalypse.

Castiel stepped back and surveyed Dean's wounds. It seemed almost as routine for him to do as it was for Sam.

"At least your experience has made you take on the form of a more suitable leader."

"'Take on the form of'?" repeated Dean. "Gee, thanks. Where you getting that from?"

"Your wounds appear more like those of the Passion as they accrue. You only lack the crown of thorns."

"Oh, those would just make my day. Why don't you can it with the fan-boying? Not everyone wants to be like Jesus, you know."

"They should," said Castiel.

"Though it would be neat to be able to turn water into wine. Or beer, hey! Beer would be way better."

"You're an infidel," Sam told him.

Dean sighed, rubbing his temples. He had to stop and pat his forehead, paranoid, as if to make sure no crown of thorns was about to land on him. "Christ!" he swore.

"Exactly," Sam put in. Dean gave him the finger.

"I suppose you're not even going to tell us what you put on the iron suit for?" Dean asked Cas, and Sam nodded, encouraging this line of questioning. He was becoming shamefully nosy lately. Compared to their normal pace, the last few days had been slow.

What a life.

After a predictable beat without answering solely to rebuke Dean for use of references, Cas said, "There's work to be done. We cannot tarry here any longer."

"All I'm going to hear about it, huh?" Dean said to the room at large. "We need to work on your information sharing, we do. You know what," he added, warming to the subject, "Jesus seemed to share a lot with people, huh, why don't you work off that? He was practically a talk show host, like, the Oprah of his day."

"Dean!" Sam protested at yet another turn of irreverence from Dean, but Castiel was quicker. He reached out and touched fingers to Dean's forehead.

"You talk too much."

Sam cried out in panic. According to the nurses, his brother had spent the whole day going in and out like that. He didn't want to jumble what spare resources his brother's mind had left by this point.

"Did that really make things better?" demanded Sam. "Hold on, was it because he insulted Jesus?"

Castiel contemplated Dean's sprawled figure. "It will facilitate the process of leaving. Shall we?"

Sam didn't think it was really a question, but he sputtered, "Wait! Dean wants to see Dr. House first. I think." It occurred to him that Castiel would only release another dire prediction, and he hastily amended, "I think they wanted to keep him overnight. Just a little longer?"

He hadn't known the extent of Castiel's powers when he'd first met him, and now that he was acting like that former self, Sam was wary of accepting help or directives from a repowered Castiel. Not like he'd ever led Dean to make good choices. Sam was intimately familiar with bad choices.

Castiel cast him an exasperated glare that all but skewered him - Sam recoiled (had the angel always been this cranky? he was worse than Bobby!) and disappeared.

Sam let out a deep breath of aggravation. No wonder Dean had slept so much the year he got back. Dealing with 100% angel was tiring.


	14. Chapter 14 and long Author's Note

**Chapter Fourteen**

House had really fallen through when it came to giving Cuddy a ride back to PPTH, but it was hard to get annoyed when he still had that impossible patient to deal with. The taxis were back up and running, so she cabbed over to Wilson's building to pick up Rachel, then back home.

The next day, she was grabbed and pulled into an empty supply room as soon as she got back to the hospital.

It felt like business as usual. She smiled.

Naturally, no news was good news. She found herself ducking _Sick Sad World_ Handicams with Helen Morgendorffer, Stacy's replacement, who seemed to have experience with them.

"My daughter watches the show," she explained gloomily, adding, "_He'd_ probably like it," as if it was an insult.

There was no need to ask who _he_ was. Legal had a... unique way of talking about House.

Cuddy had a mad desire to go up to the _Sick Sad World_ crew and tell all about the archangel Michael, the chosen blockhead, the complete Apocalyptic deal. What would _they_ make of it? Having the truth pent up inside her, not being able to see if anyone else knew a better reason for everything going to dust, it was starting to get to her.

It would do no use to try to discover what they'd found. The lawyer would probably tackle her first.

She looked around the cafeteria. No way would food service be back yet - thank goodness for vending machines - and it was easy to find, making it the perfect place to set up temporary office. Cuddy wondered if her med school desk had made it through. She hadn't noticed when she'd been in her office with House.

The bright blue tarp covering the windows flapped with the wind. They gave the room a darkened, eerie glow, like it was set deep underwater. She shifted in her hard wooden seat, trying to get comfortable, but nothing she did helped.

Brenda was the first person to come in, although Cuddy was sure there'd been a line. Knowing her head nurse, the other people waiting to see Cuddy were probably lost in a sea of exam rooms by now.

"Someone attacked House yesterday," she said without preamble. "Again. Knife, this time."

"What?" said Cuddy, rising out of her chair. "Why didn't I hear about this until now? Is he all right?" She avoided eye contact with either woman, knowing the answer they'd prefer. It wasn't up to them, at least, but when she thought of who was ultimately in charge, she felt no better.

"If he was at another hospital, maybe he can sue their security," Helen suggested right away.

The woman was an absolute _shark_. It had been what got her hired, but now Cuddy was reconsidering. No, still better to have her on their side than against.

"He seemed to be," said Brenda, but something in her voice told Cuddy there was more.

"But?" she demanded.

"No one can find him, and they think he has a concussion."

"You stay here," she ordered. "I'm going back to Mercy to check it out."

"Oh, your patient, he was there too," said Brenda. "Stabbed. They said he made it through."

Cuddy's fists clenched.

Why should she be surprised? The last time the patient's life had been in danger, the resulting 'fix' had destroyed her hospital. Of course this attack would lead to one of the other things she held dear being damaged. She knew nothing would've kept House, with his determination to save everyone, from jumping to his patient's defence.

Once again, this was Dean's doing.

The walk to her car went by in a haze. She'd been approached by a number of staff, but their voices always seemed to come from far away and she kept moving. She shook her hands and hissed in pain when she laid them upon the steering wheel. Her nails had broken through the skin.

At Mercy, she stormed through the layers of red tape keeping her from talking to the patient. There was enough duty left in her to tell the police he had amnesia and talking to him would distress him far too much to proceed just yet.

Pfft, amnesia. It was like something House would watch. When had her life turned into a soap opera?

"You need to keep a better leash on your doctors," Dean said when she shook him awake after forcing his brother out of the room, a little harder than necessary on both counts. He knew how to add insult to injury, she'd give him that.

"Oh, because you were handling the situation just fine," Cuddy snapped.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Because there wouldn't have been a damn situation in the first place if Doc House hadn't told someone to shoot their damn foot off!"

Cuddy couldn't speak for one stunned moment after that.

"How can you blame him for this?" she finally asked.

He looked down. "Yeah, you're right. People are crazy, and that dude was just crazier than most." His eyes kept flicking towards the door, and she moved to block his view of it. "Have you seen him? Is he okay?"

"Oh, like _you_ care."

"Why does everyone keep saying that? Yeah, I care, I put a lot of blood into keeping a Glasgow smile off his face."

She laughed. "_You_ kept _him_ from getting stabbed?"

"Don't say it like it's such a surprise," he mumbled, a petulant scowl on his face. She could swear he sounded hurt.

Sighing, she pulled up a chair. "All right. Tell me what happened."

"Since you asked so nicely," he said, and filled her in.

She was pacing by the end of it, following elaborate routes over the floor to give herself the time to prepare herself for what she had to say. In the end, the best she could do was, "I'm sorry."

He shrugged.

She took a deep breath and engaged in round two.

"I'm sorry I doubted you," she said. "House is..." Finishing that sentence would take all day. "I know you two had your differences, and that he was going to report you, but you saved him anyway. It's a lot easier to feel... justified in what happened knowing that's who you are."

"Yeah, well," he mumbled. She decided he'd gotten the message and breathed a sigh of relief over not having to press on. "So you didn't believe when an angel told you about me. Good for you."

"I believe!" she defended herself. She didn't like this topic of conversation – it was like applying salt to a wound, after everything she'd had torn from her in the name of faith. Unfair.

"Still had to prove myself to you, right? No one believes as much as they'd like to think."

She flushed.

"I guess not," she said shortly.

"Hey, listen to me, it's a good thing. Guess I'm just giving you a hard time 'cause of my cabin fever. We ready to go?"

To be honest, she didn't quite think he was. She got the feeling, though, that he had snuck out of hospitals in a lot worse condition before.

Angels were watching over him; she shouldn't have to, as well. She'd done her part and given, and given, was still giving even now.

He had been the one to offer to leave.

"You're ready," Cuddy said.

* * *

"No, wait," said Sam when Dean told him the good news. Dr. Cuddy was off finding a way to manoeuvre him around the police, or at least that's what Dean hoped. With the way she felt about him, he kind of expected her to turn him in instead. Good thing she seemed to have faith after all. "We haven't said thanks to Dr. House yet."

"Not interested." Dean paused. "Actually, the last thing I remember is us talking about him, then some boring Jesus business, before Doc Cuddy woke me. What happened?" He jogged his leg, itching with impatience to get _doing_ something again. There were things to be hunted, people to be saved! He couldn't afford to keep losing time, certainly not by blacking out.

God, Dean wanted to wipe that smug little brother smirk off Sammy's face.

"You fainted again," said Sam.

"Really?" Dean'd felt fine, considering. He bet the problem was House's stupid sedatives again, but still, twice in one day? Sam would never let him live it down.

Sam gave him a condescending pat to the shoulder. "Don't worry. Your secret is safe with me."

"It being with _you_ is part of the problem," Dean muttered, and Sam's stupid grin only grew wider.

"Thanking the doctors on your case is something that Dad would do," insisted Sam.

Dean snorted. "Maybe if we were planning on hanging around long enough for your tone-deaf ass to finish a musical. This is the man who always went for first-floor rooms so we could sneak out if we had to."

"Well, it's something _I_ would do, then. And I will."

"Suit yourself, I guess," said Dean, still watching the door. Surely Dr. House would show up before he left. It bothered him, not knowing if he'd gotten stabbed for nothing.

Speak of the devil - the next person through the door was the doctor himself. They straightened.

Dr. House was pale, and all his chatty bravado had drained away, revealing a deeper stillness that he hadn't expected the doctor to have.

"So you're leaving," said Dr. House. He shook his head. "You need another day at least. It's too soon."

"You don't look so hot yourself," said Dean.

The doctor smiled wryly. "I knew I should've done my hair this morning."

From one private person to another, he understood. He nodded.

Plus, he had Sam, who was asking, "Are you sure you're all right, Dr. House?" with his eyes all big in the way that was hard to say no to.

"Happens all the time," said the doc, and Dean chuckled. He _could _see that being the case.

Sam poked him in his uninjured side to rebuke him, though he didn't think the doc had cared.

"We want to thank you," Sam began, the bitch, "for taking the case."

"I didn't really have a choice," said House, but Sam was undeterred. A sincere Sam was an overpowering thing.

"I know you did everything you could to help keep Dean alive, so I think you saved his life. And the fact that you did..." Sam welled up, of course. "It means a lot to me, and I-"

"Gah!" Dean interrupted, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "Go find some ponies to frolic with or something."

The doctor gave a silent little laugh and turned towards Dean as Sam pouted. He better not be expecting the same kind of touchy-feely crap Sam'd fed him.

Dean stared him down. "I figure we're even."

Sam let out a mortified groan.

"I forgive you for stealing my cane this time," said House. "PPTH, though..." Dean twisted his mouth to the side in displeasure; a little knowledge was a dangerous thing. Maybe they should tell the doctor everything?

But Sam had already leapt to his feet to escort Dr. House out, chattering in heated defence of Dean, and what difference was it going to make anyway? He thought Dean was crazy, and it wasn't like Dean cared if he did.

Just bothered him, was all; he would've dragged his ass far, far away, no matter how long it took, to keep the hospital from being hit, and he'd like if someone could see that for once, instead of just hating him on sight. Doctors here were so freaking judgey.

Well, there was only one war he needed to win, and this hadn't been an important battle, not in the parts he'd played. He could let it slide.

Just a few more battles left to go. Then, they could rest.

He didn't know what that would feel like, but he thought he might like it.

* * *

House looked at his team. It felt like it had been a long time since they'd met up to do a regular diagnostic session. Not that there was much call for it now. His team kept sneaking glances at him as if they shouldn't be here, but he was ignoring it. He tossed a teddy bear in the air, watching it spin, and caught it. There was something to be said about setting up camp in the pediatrics clinic.

Cameron was laying all the newest findings before them. Most of the tests had resulted in average statistics, which were spectacularly uninteresting. He tossed those ones into the comet-emblazoned garbage can, despite protests.

There were a few good finds from Chase, though. House examined the upper body x-rays. The first ones were bare, with clear signs of having recovered normal bone mass; the second set, with markings like the ones he'd stuck on the fridge; and the third, showing Dean's broken rib, was different from either of them.

He had a flash of the man from his hallucination pressing a hand to Dean's chest as they waited in Radiology. Would that have even been real?

"Did anyone come by while you were performing the x-rays?" he asked Chase.

"Just his friend," Chase responded perfunctorily, and House tensed. But Chase was much more interested in the findings from his chemist contact. "She had to pass it on to a biochemist in the end. So the hemoglobin in the strange cells just completely mutated, or got replaced by another enzyme - they're not sure they can sequence it - so that it holds sulphur instead of iron."

"There's definitely _something_ wrong with the brother, then," said Cameron. "The covalent bond it would take to pick up oxygen would change everything about how the oxygen exchange works - or doesn't. You don't even see archaea using sulphur for anything like that."

"That's because they use sulphur _instead_ of oxygen in their metabolism. Maybe it's not there to pick the oxygen up, but is the fuel itself. It's how life on Earth began. Perhaps we're dealing with some sort of primitive prokaryotic parasite that evolved to mimic red blood cells, living in his vascular system?" Chase guarded the printout like a baby, beaming over it.

"To mimic a eukaryote, its cell structure would have to be drastically advanced," Foreman said, seizing the page. He skimmed it. "Look, it would make a great paper, but we aren't dealing with it, or we shouldn't be. They're leaving soon, right? The patient's better. Why are we continuing this case?"

Oh, Foreman. No natural curiosity whatsoever. What a boring child he must have been!

"Some of us like to work for our salary," said House.

"_Us_?" repeated Foreman with scorn. "I'll admit this case was strange, yeah, but there's nothing we can do about it anymore."

"No," House agreed, "there isn't, really."

He gave the teddy another toss. It hit the ceiling this time and came plummeting down. The others observed its crash and burn, waiting for House to say more. He supposed the only thing left to talk about was the competition he'd instated. Hopefully, they'd forgotten.

"Case closed," said House, slamming the chart shut. "Another one doesn't bite the dust."

"Back with his family," said Foreman.

"The poor brother," Cameron added softly.

He made his way out of the office quickly, trying to avoid the gossip session of his overbearing staff. The tension of not asking him about the attack - at least they'd learnt, over their time with him - had been so heavy he could feel it lifting off him the further away he got. He noticed he still had the stuffed animal in his hands.

"Here," he said, stuffing it on the lap of a teenager in a wheelchair. Her jaw dropped and she glared at it, affronted at the slight to her oh-so-considerable years.

Unfortunately, that had been enough time standing still for Chase to catch a glimpse of him.

"You didn't mention the contest," he said.

"Calling it off," said House. "That patient is old news, anyway."

"If the Internet was back, I'd have a lot to share. Though I don't know how much information there'd be on the Winchesters."

House froze. "Where did you hear that?" he asked, as casually as he could manage.

"Oh, Sam mentioned it at one point. Do I win yet?" Chase rifled through the papers he'd brought with him, likely looking for more damning information.

"I wouldn't look them up," said House. "Nothing to see, really."

"Figured you'd beat us there." Chase stared at one of the pages, a smile growing on his face.

This could not be good.

"You know," he said with dawning excitement, and House dreaded what he'd hear next, "the patient was with us for three days."

"Sometimes it's good to remember I hired you for your counting skills and not your pretty green eyes," said House. Green? Blue? Brown? Whatever. Right now, though, they might as well have been telegraphing, 'Eureka!'

"He came to us practically guaranteed to die, and after three days, he–"

"Rose from the dead?" House cut in unenthusiastically.

Because it was Chase, House's scoffing didn't stop him. "Yes. He bore the marks and everything. I was the one doing the x-rays, and there was only one way it could've–"

He _really _didn't want any reminders of what he thought had happened the night before, he was discovering.

"If you stop talking," said House, "I'll hand the competition over to you." He was glad for the chance to avoid having it happen. It had been an ill-considered move, not taking into account how his feelings about the case might change.

That stopped Chase in his tracks. "Really? Does this mean you think I'm right?"

House snorted. "Of course not. It just means I don't want to hear you being born again. It sounds just as ugly the second time as it does the first."

Chase gave him a hard stare. "But don't you see–"

"Keep talking and I'll give it to Foreman," House warned him.

Chase's grin threatened to break his face. He nodded and left, probably to get on his knees in that uncomfortable chapel. House could even hear the bounce in his step as he walked away. It got on his nerves.

A little part of him mused that it must be nice for Chase to be proven right, to be able to stand by his faith once more.

Of course, House knew if he were some entity from elsewhere, the first thing he'd do somewhere else was pretend to be one of the worshipped figures, too.

Aliens 1, God 0?

He kept forgetting that hadn't actually happened, making the hallucinations the real winner.

As he moved, he leaned against the railing of the hallway. Mercy was much more convenient in that regard. Something in him felt nauseated, oily, and it was throwing him off-balance.

Determined to follow his regular pattern, he waited on the floor above the entrance to see the patient leave. Usually, it was with the assurance that at least the patient would live, lives in shambles or not from letting the truth out. There'd be fresh starts ahead of them, second chances.

Then there was this case. He'd never wanted a patient to live less, never felt as cheated when the patient got better. He would've brought the patient round in time, despite his feelings against him, he could have. But no, that was snatched away by forces he preferred not to think about because any explanation only came down to believing in the power of the crazy. He wouldn't be able to watch the Space Channel for weeks now.

From his vantage point, he saw Cuddy wheeling the patient out, leaning low over the chair, flanked by the friend and family. Strange how many more visitors a serial killer had gotten, over time, compared to House - who never counted his employees as visitors.

He moved along, trying to get closer, see the expressions on their faces. He really should've stolen Wilson's opera glasses for this one. His eagle eye still caught the smiles, though the patient had his mouth curved up solely for appearances and Weird Trenchcoat Alien stayed true to his hallucinatory self. Did he ever change out of that outfit?

He scrambled for the elevator right before they left, making it out in time to see them go through the doors. He followed at a distance, wary on Cuddy's behalf.

They turned a corner. When he did the same, he saw an abandoned wheelchair folded next to the hospital wall, nothing else.

Cuddy.

Three women. Murdered, beaten, kidnapped. Mutilated flesh. Burnt corpses. Evil twins, each more evil than the last.

House's heart stopped for a moment, resuming with a heavy thumping that rushed through his head, drowning out any other sounds.

The patient really had been too healthy. House should have done something, he should've...

It had to be done, oh _why_ had he ever put it off? He could've handed the patient over drugged and unconscious, but he hadn't, and now - and now-

He still didn't think he believed in God, but if this patient was so special after all, maybe God would prove His existence for him as he had for the rest of the hospital because that was the only way Dean Winchester could be saved now.

He walked over to one of the police officers still hanging around the area, probably to investigate the stabbing.

"Hi," he said. "There's a patient I had whom I thought I should fix you up with. Tall, blond, serial killer... sound like your type?"

Talking to the police was easy; everybody lies. His psychiatrist was the one who turned out to be hard to speak to.

"We were wrong," said House. "He was just screwed up, not insane." Unlike himself.

"I came up with a list of findings," said Nolan, sounding disappointed, as if he still wanted to share. He probably did. House was reasonably sure his only friend was a wooden boat.

"I've been hallucinating again." He'd need to tell Wilson, too, have his friend watch him to make sure he stayed on the straight and narrow path of sanity.

"Were there drugs involved?"

He hesitated. "There was a sedative, mild dose, took it right before. I diluted it."

"I see," said Nolan after an uncomfortable silence. "Was this the first time you'd taken anything?"

"Yes," House insisted, hating how conversations with his shrink made him feel like a recalcitrant teenager.

"Something must have happened. How is your patient?"

House became conscious that there were worse conversations to have.

He thought over the case once more but could barely stand to do so through his cringe-worthy embarrassment, not just over his hallucination but his ultimate failure in solving it. One day, he'd decipher what the delusion had been trying to tell him.

"He committed suicide," said House. "Slit himself, wrists, feet, side – religious idiocy claims another one."

Nolan expressed surprise and condolence, and House permitted himself a small triumphant smile on the other end of the line.

At least that was over with.

When he got home to Wilson's, he threw out the _Supernatural_ books.

* * *

"Seriously," Dean shouted from the washroom, "we are _not_ doing this again! I don't care who's after us, if they can be killed, we can just stay and kill 'em instead."

Sam found the first-aid kit and threw it in to him.

He hadn't seen _how_ Dean could've tripped and landed just so to scrape the top of his head on the exposed nails of Bobby's latest Curse Box project (good thing for tetanus shots). Collecting another of the wounds of the Passion, as Castiel had called them, had done nothing to improve Dean's outlook on life.

"I'll go get you some Metamucil or something," Sam suggested, before he caught sight of Castiel passed out on the bed with a nosebleed. "No, maybe I should stay here." Castiel'd had lost his power-up by the time they'd all reached Bobby's, but he'd seemed fine until having to send Dr. Cuddy to her house. Why he'd jumped the gun in zapping them (and the car) away anyway, Sam didn't know.

He stood up and paced the room, twitching as something uncomfortable made its way down its back. After lots of wriggling, he isolated the culprit: an M&M that must've been there for a while. "Dean!" he shouted. A grunt was his only response.

Sam sat on the bed; he'd harboured momentary indecision over whether pushing an angel to the other side was sacrilegious before recollecting that Castiel had done far worse to him. He opened his laptop and programmed his iPod with Led Zeppelin disguised as Lady Gaga and Metallica disguised as Miley Cyrus. It had taken a while to implement this prank due to the difficulty in finding pop stars whom Dean didn't find hot, but he was confident that a casual offer to use his iPod when Dean's gadgets 'inexplicably' ran out of battery would lead to maximum indignation, for sweet payback.

To throw Dean off guard, and since they had no set plan anyway, he called out, "We're going to the Grand Canyon once you get out of there. Every time you fake me out, I start wanting to."

"'Bout time you start making some sense, Sammy," said Dean just before releasing a series of sounds and smells too horrific to describe. Sam opened the window and got out his air freshener spray – a necessity when travelling with Dean – dousing the room.

He smiled. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad after all. Dean was back and healed, they had just taken out Pestilence, he had a prank up his sleeve, the room smelled like fresh-baked cookies (or ones that were baked in a chemical plant, anyway) and they had made it out of New Jersey. Only Death and Lucifer left to go.

Well, it could be worse.

They were out on the road again, doing what they did, their bond stronger than before they'd gone to the hospital, and Sam for one was looking forward to kicking some demon ass. Judging by the swearing coming from the bathroom, Dean was too.

He headed towards the kitchen, the smell improving as he got further from the room, to see about the Metamucil, but Bobby had placed his chair to block the way and was fidgeting with the wheels, back and forth. He'd laid a gun across the arm rests.

"What's up, Bobby?" Sam asked. When he inhaled, he realised that maybe it hadn't been so much cookies he smelled, but pie. Pie, like the ten that were currently laid out on Bobby's kitchen table. "You bake now? Dean's never going to leave."

"Not exactly," Bobby said nervously as an ashy-complexioned blonde woman came up behind him, a cheery smile on her face. He angled his gun towards Sam, not lifting it off the chair so that the woman didn't notice the threat. "I ever tell you 'bout my wife?"

**END**

* * *

**Author's Note**

Whew. Pat yourself on the back if you read all that: it's novel-length (62k words), and I know it takes a while to get through. I had to reread it every chapter or two to make sure there was continuity, so good thing I find my humour delightful. Since the story's set after SPN's 'My Bloody Valentine', I set it to pick back up for the next episode - zombies! - in my conclusion.

There is an epilogue/coda-type piece set way in the future, AU after SPN 5.20 or so, "Death Comes at the End of the Road", that is now up. Here's an excerpt:

_"Does this place really look the afterlife?" House retorts. "You did have a bad case of rheumatic fever, and I have no idea how they missed your typhoid. You're infectious, not dead."_

_"Actually, you are," says someone coming down the stairs, and House's head jerks up. The warm gruffness he hears sounds familiar._

_The woman wails._

_ "What, are you here to tell me I see dead people?" House asks._

_ "At least I'm not bald," says the man – a shot at House, who is. He winks at the woman as he turns to face them. "C'mon, sweetheart, it'll be okay." He nods in House's direction. "What's up, doc?" His eyes crinkle at the corners as he flashes House a smile._

_"Dean Winchester." House's memories unfold. Oh, great. Moonlighting as a mortician is one thing, but having your worst case come back to haunt you as you do it is irony on a scale that blows screechy pop songs out of the water._

_ "You don't look a day older than the last time I saw you," he accuses him. It's been years; how many, he doesn't know._

_Dean brushes him off. "I get my beauty rest." He takes the woman by the hand, arm around her, and leads her up the stairs, murmuring. "I'll deal with you later," he tells House in much friendlier a way than he expected to hear from his former patient. They hadn't exactly parted on good terms._

The title One Word, and that was 'Dead', which I never did manage to incorporate into the fic itself, comes from a line in _the _song of House, MD: "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones. The story expanded beyond my wildest dreams; once I got to Chapter 8 I kept thinking there was only 2 chapters left at like every single chapter. The first two scenes I had down (came to me in a dream and all) were the opening with House watching Cuddy and the scene with Dean & Michaeldam.

I loved doing varying POVs between characters. I had the characters say conflicting things or be flat-out wrong fairly often because none of them had all the information, so IMO it was bound to happen. I think what made me saddest to have to do in the fic was have them not get along - I so meant for Cuddy and Dean to fall in lust at first sight and hook up, I did! But the more I got into plotting (srsly, it feels like it takes a general to plan things out), the more concerned I was about how characters would take things or what made sense, and that didn't seem to IMO. Oh well, House & Dean get a drink and listen to music together in the separately-posted epilogue.

Castiel would threaten me over talking too much at this point, so I'll wrap it up. Thanks for everyone's support and feedback through this - alerters, favers, reviewers. Knowing that people were waiting to find out what was happening is what kept me going. If you've shown an interest by adding me to a list, I hope to hear what you thought about the story now that it's finished :)

* * *

*deep breath* I guess that's all. End #2.


End file.
